1248 Jugurtha

1248 Jugurtha (prov. designation: ) is a stony background asteroid from the central regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 29 km in diameter. Discovered by Cyril Jackson at the Union Observatory in 1932, the asteroid was named after Jugurtha, the ancient North African king of Numidia. The S-type asteroid is likely elongated in shape and has a rotation period of 12.9 hours.

Discovery
Jugurtha was discovered on 1 September 1932, by South African astronomer Cyril Jackson at the Union Observatory in Johannesburg. On 29 September 1932, it was independently determined by Soviet astronomer Grigory Neujmin at the Simeiz Observatory on the Crimean peninsula. The Minor Planet Center only recognizes the first discoverer.

Orbit and classification
Jugurtha is a non-family asteroid from the main belt's background population. It orbits the Sun in the central asteroid belt at a distance of 2.7–2.8 AU once every 4 years and 6 months (1,640 days; semi-major axis of 2.72 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.02 and an inclination of 9° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins with its first observation as at Heidelberg Observatory in November 1901, nearly 31 years prior to its official discovery,.

Naming
This minor planet was named after Jugurtha (160–104 BC), a king of Numidia in North Africa, opposed to and defeated by Rome in the Jugurthine War (112–106 BC). The official was mentioned in The Names of the Minor Planets by Paul Herget in 1955 (H 115).

Physical characteristics
In the SMASS classification, Jugurtha is a common, stony S-type asteroid.

Rotation period
Several rotational lightcurves of Jugurtha have been obtained from photometric observations since 2001. Analysis of the best-rated lightcurve gave a rotation period of $27.46 km$ hours with a brightness amplitude between 0.70 and 1.40 magnitude (U=3), indicative of an elongated, non-spherical shape. A modeled lightcurve, using photometric data from the Lowell Photometric Database, gave a concurring period of 12.19047 hours, as well as a spin axis of (254.0°, −89.0°) in ecliptic coordinates (λ, β).

Diameter and albedo
According to the surveys carried out by the Japanese Akari satellite and the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Jugurtha measures between 27.46 and 33.559 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo between 0.2073 and 0.282. The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes a standard albedo for stony asteroids of 0.20 and calculates a diameter of 31.12 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 9.9.