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Annibale de Gasparis (9 November 1819-21 March 1892) was an Italian astronomer, known for discovering asteroids and his contributions to theoretical astronomy.
De Gasparis was born in 1819 in Bugnara to Angelo de Gasparis and Eleonora Angelantoni originally from Tocco da Casauria. Son of a doctor, he studied in the seminars of Sulmona and Chieti, becoming passionate of classic novels and learning mathematics as a self-taught person.
In 1838, he arrived in Naples to study engineering at the School of Bridges and Roads, today's Engineering faculty of Naples University, and the following year he was accepted as a student at the Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte by the director Ernesto Capocci. He studied mathematics and celestial mechanics and in 1845 he published his first scientific paper on the orbit of the minor planet Vesta. For this studies he earned, as early as 1846, the honorary degree in mathematics by the University of Naples.
In 1848 he participated in the liberal movements, he avoided the Bourbon repression dedicating to the King Ferdinand II his first discovery: the asteroid Hygiea, made on 12 April 1849 with the equatorial telescope of Reichenbach & Utzschneider, giving it the name of Igea Borbonica.
In 1850, Capocci was dismissed as director of the observatory due to his participation in the liberal revolts. De Gasparis refused to assume the position of observatory director in deference to his mentor and friend Capocci.
In 1858, he was appointed professor of astronomy in Naples University.
After the death of Capocci, 6 January 1864, he was appointed as director of the Astronomical Observatory of Capodimonte in Naples. Due to his illness he left the observatory in 1889 going to live in a country house not far from the Observatory.
De Gasparis published more than 200 scientific papers on mathematics, celestial mechanics, astronomy and meteorology.
He and others occasionally wrote his name as Annibal de Gasparis.
More information: The Royal Society
15 Eunomia is a very large asteroid in the middle asteroid belt. It is the largest of the stony (S-type) asteroids, with 3 Juno as a close second. It is quite a massive asteroid, in 6th to 8th place (to within measurement uncertainties). It is the largest Eunomian asteroid, and is estimated to contain 1% of the mass of the asteroid belt.
Eunomia was discovered by Annibale de Gasparis on July 29, 1851, and named after Eunomia, one of the Horae (Hours), a personification of order and law in Greek mythology. Its historical symbol is a heart with a star on top; it is in the pipeline for Unicode 17.0 as U+1CEC8.
15 Eunomia was in study of asteroids using the Hubble FGS. Asteroids studied include (63) Ausonia, (15) Eunomia, (43) Ariadne, (44) Nysa, and (624) Hektor.
The orbit of 15 Eunomia places it in a 7:16 mean-motion resonance with the planet Mars. Eunomia is used by the Minor Planet Center to calculate perturbations. The computed Lyapunov time for this asteroid is 25,000 years, indicating that it occupies a chaotic orbit that will change randomly over time because of gravitational perturbations of the planets.
Eunomia has been observed occulting stars three times. It has a mean opposition magnitude of +8.5, about equal to the mean brightness of Titan, and can reach +7.9 at a near perihelion opposition.
More information: NASA
The dinosaurs didn't have a space program,
so they're not here to talk about this problem.
We are, and we have the power to do something about it.
I don't want to be the embarrassment of the galaxy,
to have had the power to deflect an asteroid,
and then not, and end up going extinct.
Neil deGrasse Tyson
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