52266 Van Flandern
eugene shoemaker
['harold urey', 'linear', 'thomas newcomen', 'nanking', 'gridshell', 'kazuro watanabe', 'silas weir mitchell', 'toshimasa furuta', 'james dunlop', 'robert bunsen', 'speke', 'urbain le verrier', 'henri cartan', 'anselm', 'bickley', 'robert luther', 'chad trujillo', 'niels bohr', 'microsoft', 'humphry davy', 'james watt', 'alexander grothendieck', 'george westinghouse', 'oak ridge observatory', 'roger penrose', 'nikolai chernykh', 'herschel', 'karl drais', 'vapnik', 'christopher alexander', 'noam chomsky', 'egide walschaerts', 'benjamin franklin', 'ernest rutherford', 'julian huxley', 'william rowan hamilton', 'seymour papert', 'george berkeley', 'ernest johnson', 'mikhail lazarev', 'vint cerf', 'carl friedrich gauss', 'pelageya shajn', 'tsutomu seki', 'indiana asteroid program', 'cyril jackson', 'pieter zeeman', 'carl gustav mosander', 'george maciunas', 'moog', 'carolyn shoemaker', 'henry holt', 'henry bessemer', 'alessandro malaspina', 'liisi oterma', 'sequoyah', 'bernhard schmidt', 'henri lebesgue', 'cornelis johannes van houten', 'eric elst', 'ward cunningham', 'albert einstein', 'isaac newton', 'werner heisenberg', 'conway', 'hyperboloid', 'bill mollison', 'james bradley', 'clyde tombaugh', 'hendrik van gent', 'gause', 'nauchnyj', 'marija gimbutas', 'tom gehrels', 'gotthold ephraim lessing', 'cavendish', 'donald knuth', 'loneos', 'stallman', 'ole kirk christiansen', 'lee de forest', 'georg cantor', 'heinrich schenker', 'carl auer von welsbach', 'harry edwin wood', 'birmingham university', 'edwin mcmillan', 'franz anton mesmer', 'malcolm mackerras', 'hyperloop', 'gustav rose', 'lewis swift', 'ephraim shay', 'mike brown', 'kirchhoff', 'nicolas bourriaud', 'franz kaiser', 'william hyde wollaston', 'sir nigel gresley']
52266 Van Flandern
52266 Van Flandern, provisional designation 1986 AD, is a stony asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, about 4.5 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered by American astronomers Carolyn and Eugene Shoemaker at the U.S. Palomar Observatory, California, on 10 January 1986. The stony S-type asteroid is a member of the Phocaea family, a group of asteroids with similar orbital characteristics. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 1.8–2.8 AU once every 3 years and 7 months (1,303 days). Its orbit shows an eccentricity of 0.22 and an inclination of 24 degrees from the plane of the ecliptic. In 2011 and 2013, three photometric light-curve analysis at the Via Capote Observatory in California, the Palomar Transient Factory, as well as at the Australian Oakley Southern Sky Observatory, rendered a well-defined rotation period between 9.88 and 9.89 hours with a small brightness amplitude of 0.01 or lower in magnitude. Light-curves with such low amplitudes typically indicate that the asteroid has a nearly spheroidal shape. A provisional, fourth light-curve observation by astronomer René Roy at Blauvac Observatory, France, in 2011, agrees reasonably well. According to the survey carried out by NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) with its subsequent NEOWISE mission, the asteroid's surface has an albedo of 0.25. WISE also finds a diameter of 4.4 kilometers for the stony asteroid. The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a slightly lower albedo of 0.22 with a corresponding diameter of 4.6 kilometers, as the lower the body's reflectivity (albedo), the larger its diameter, for a given absolute brightness (absolute magnitude) of 13.9. In 2009, the minor planet was named after American astronomer Tom Van Flandern (1940–2009), who predicted and comprehensively analyzed lunar occultations at USNO, and published pioneering papers on the dynamics of binary minor planets in the 1970s. Van Flandern helped improve the accuracy of the Global Positioning System and established Meta Research to support alternative cosmological ideas.