471143 Dziewanna

Lore & Background

Dziewanna was discovered on 13 March 2010 by astronomers Andrzej Udalski, Scott Sheppard, Marcin Kubiak and Chad Trujillo using the 1.3-meter Warsaw telescope at Las Campanas Observatory in Chile. The object was reobserved on 5 April 2010 by the discoverers and on 8 April 2010 by amateur astronomer Jennie McCormick at Farm Cove Observatory in New Zealand. The discovery was announced by the Minor Planet Center on 8 April 2010. Two hours after the announcement, Andrew Lowe reported precovery observations from Palomar Observatory's Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking survey images from 2002 and 2003, revealing a highly eccentric orbit. On 25 September 2018, it was named after Devana (Polish form: Dziewanna), a Slavic goddess of the wilderness, forests and the hunt, in honor of its discovery during the Polish Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment of Warsaw University, led by Udalski. Dziewanna orbits the Sun at a distance of 32.6 to 108.3 AU once every 591 years and 4 months, with an eccentricity of 0.54 and an inclination of 29°. A ten-million-year integration shows it is in a 2:7 resonance with Neptune. It belongs to the scattered disc, a population of TNOs with distant, inclined, and eccentric orbits that come close to Neptune at perihelion. Dziewanna's shape is unknown. Thermal observations by the Herschel Space Telescope in 2010 gave an albedo of 0.25+0.02−0.05 and a diameter of about 470 km. A stellar occultation on 17 May 2019 yielded a minimum length of 504 km for the longest axis. A 2019 study using thermal measurements derived an albedo of 0.297+0.113−0.078 and a diameter of approximately 433+63−64 km. Its rotational lightcurve shows a period of 7.07±0.05 hours with a brightness variation of 0.12 magnitude. Observations by Michael Brown at the Keck telescope in March 2012 failed to find a satellite, so its mass remains unknown.

Reader's Guide

Dziewanna is significant as a large scattered disc object whose orbit is influenced by Neptune's gravitational perturbations, placing it in a 2:7 resonance with the planet. Its discovery and precovery images extended its observation arc to 8 years prior to discovery, allowing for a well-determined orbit. The object's size estimates, derived from thermal measurements and a stellar occultation, show some variation—ranging from about 470 km to 433 km—reflecting the challenges in characterizing distant TNOs. The lack of a detected satellite means its mass cannot be directly measured. Its naming after a Slavic goddess highlights the international collaboration and Polish leadership in the OGLE survey that led to its discovery. Dziewanna's highly eccentric orbit (eccentricity 0.54) and inclination of 29° are typical of scattered disc objects, which are thought to have been scattered outward by Neptune's gravity. The object's rotational period of 7.07 hours and small brightness variation suggest a relatively regular shape. As one of the larger known scattered disc objects, Dziewanna contributes to our understanding of the outer Solar System's population and dynamics.

Did You Know?

• Dziewanna was discovered on 13 March 2010 by a team including Andrzej Udalski, Scott Sheppard, Marcin Kubiak, and Chad Trujillo.
• A stellar occultation on 17 May 2019 gave a minimum length of 504 km for its longest axis.
• No satellite has been found, so its mass remains unknown.