(45) Eugenia

(45) Eugenia is an asteroid belonging to the asteroid belt discovered on June 27, 1857 by Hermann Mayer Salomon Goldschmidt from Paris, France. It is named in honor of the Spanish-born French Empress Eugenia de Montijo.

Orbital characteristics

Eugenia orbits at an average distance of 2,721 ua from the Sun, being able to get as close as 2,494 ua and as far as 2,947 ua. The eccentricity of it is 0.08332 and the orbital inclination 6.604°. It takes 1,639 days to complete one orbit around the Sun.

Satellite

On November 1, 1998, William J. Merline discovered a satellite of this asteroid with the Canada-France-Hawaii 3.6-meter telescope with an adaptive optics system on Mauna Kea. It has a close to circular orbit that it travels in 4.7 days. It was given the name: S/1998 (45) 1 and nicknamed Petit Prince, after The Little Prince, a character by the writer Antoine de Saint-Exupéry. In February In 2004, the second satellite of the asteroid was discovered and named S/2004 (45) 1.