45 Eugenia is an main belt asteroid in the Sol system.
Description[]
Eugenia is a large, F-type carbonaceous asteroid with a a diameter of 214 km.[1] Its density is unusually low as it is less an asteroid than a complex pile of loose scrap and black gravel traveling in company.[2]
Satellites[]
- Petit-Prince: This moon has a diameter of 13 km and takes five days to complete an orbit around Eugenia.
- S/2004 (45) 1: This moon has a diameter of 6 km and orbits closer to Eugenia than Petit-Prince. It orbits Eugenia at about ~700 km, with an orbital period of 4.7 days.
History[]
Eugenia was discovered on 27 June 1857 by the Franco-German amateur astronomer Hermann Goldschmidt.
In November 1998, astronomers at the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea, Hawaii, discovered Petit-Prince orbiting Eugenia.
S/2004 (45) 1, a second, smaller moon, was discovered by analyses of three images acquired in February 2004 by the European Southern Observatory (ESO) Cerro Paranal, in Chile.
Events[]
 “Fires in the dark” — Spoilers for Babylon's Ashes follow.
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Michio Pa used Eugenia as a base of operations after leaving the Free Navy. Instead of building on the surface, where the UN science station that Earth had built there three generations ago and abandoned was little more than a ruin of sealed concrete and flaking ceramic, they assembled a nakliya port that orbited around Eugenia’s main body.
Shipping containers were welded together to make passageways, warehouses, and airlocks. It was temporary, inexpensive, and fast to assemble by design. A tiny reactor was used to keep the air circulating and enough heat to balance what was lost to radiation.[3]
Notes[]
- The asteroid was named after Empress Eugenia di Montijo, the wife of Napoleon III.
- Petit-Prince refers to Empress Eugenia's son, the Prince Imperial. However, the discoverers also intended an allusion to the children's novella The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, which is about a young prince who lives on an asteroid.
- "Nakliya" is a Turkish word for shipping/cargo.
References[]
- ↑
45 Eugenia
- ↑ The Expanse Novel Babylon's Ashes - Chapter 31: Pa
- ↑ The Expanse Novel Babylon's Ashes - Chapter 31: Pa