54 Alexandra

54 Alexandra is a very large and dark main belt asteroid. It was discovered by H. Goldschmidt on September 10, 1858 and named after the German explorer Alexander von Humboldt. On May 17, 2005 this asteroid occulted a faint star (magnitude 8.5) and the event was observed and timed in a number of locations within the U.S. and Mexico. As a result a silhouette profile was produced, yielding a roughly oval cross-section with dimensions of 160 × 135 km (± 1 km).[2]

Notes and references

1. ^ Asteroid Data Sets
2. ^ D.W. Dunham, "Upcoming Asteroid Occultations", Sky & Telescope, June, 2006, p. 63.