Our latest discovery about asteroid 1856 Ruzena

We studied the dim light being reflected from the main-belt asteroid 1856 Ruzena to derive its rate of rotation on its own axis. A notification for collaboration was circulated and we found out that a team from the University of Maryland at the US was also studying this same asteroid.

A collaborative campaign led by Dr. Hayes-Gehrke  (from the Department of Astronomy, Maryland University, USA) was initiated and our observations were consolidated into one common data set.

Our joint 2018 results show that this asteroid (which was unknown prior to our research) rotates on its own axis every 5.96 hours.

This is a link to our scientific paper published in Volume 45 of the Minor Planet Bulletin.

This study is also available through the SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System:
http://adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/2018MPBu...45..318H

Source of image: JPL NASA