4962 Vecherka

4962 Vecherka, provisional designation, is a Eunomian asteroid and slow rotator from the central regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 10 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 1 October 1973, by Soviet astronomer Tamara Smirnova at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnij, on the Crimean peninsula. The asteroid was named after Vechernij Petersburg, a newspaper that also publishes astronomical information.

Orbit and classification
When applying the hierarchical clustering method to its proper orbital elements, Vecherka has both been considered a non-family asteroid of the main belt's background population (according to Nesvorný), and core member of the Maria family (according to Milani and Knežević).

It orbits the Sun in the central asteroid belt at a distance of 2.2–3.0 AU once every 4 years and 3 months (1,537 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.15 and an inclination of 15° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins with its first observation as at Uccle Observatory in October 1952, or 21 years prior to its official discovery observation at Nauchnij.

Physical characteristics
Vecherka is an assumed stony S-type asteroid, which corresponds to the overall spectral type of the Maria family.

Slow rotator
In August 2015, a rotational lightcurve of Vecherka was obtained from photometric observations by a collaboration of Bulgarian astronomers. Lightcurve analysis gave a long rotation period of $8.54$ hours with a brightness variation of 1.08 magnitude (U=2), indicating that the body's shape is irregular and elongated rather than spherical. This long period makes Vecherka a slow rotator, which ranks among the Top 200 slowest ones known to exists.

Diameter and albedo
According to the survey carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Vecherka measures between 8.54 and 9.951 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo between 0.210 and 0.349.

The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link assumes an albedo of 0.21 – derived from 15 Eunomia, the family's largest member and namesake – and calculates a diameter of 10.06 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 12.3.

Naming
Based on a proposal by the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy (ITA), this minor planet was named after Vechernij Petersburg, a popular evening newspaper from Saint Petersburg, Russia, that publishes astronomical information and articles popularizing astronomical knowledge on a regular basis. The official naming citation was published by the Minor Planet Center on 14 December 1997 (M.P.C. 31023).