512 Taurinensis

Taurinensis (minor planet designation: 512 Taurinensis), provisional designation, is a stony asteroid and large Mars-crosser on an eccentric orbit from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 20 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 23 June 1903, by astronomer Max Wolf at the Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory in southwest Germany. The asteroid was named after the Italian city of Turin. It is the 4th-largest Mars-crossing asteroid.

Orbit and classification
Taurinensis is a Mars-crossing asteroid, a dynamically unstable group between the main belt and the near-Earth populations, crossing the orbit of Mars at 1.666 AU. It orbits the Sun at a distance of 1.6–2.7 AU once every 3 years and 3 months (1,183 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.25 and an inclination of 9° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins with its identification as at Heidelberg in April 1909, almost 6 years prior to its official discovery observation.

Physical characteristics
Taurinensis is a common, stony S-type asteroid in both the Tholen and SMASS classification.

Rotation period
In 1982, the asteroid was observed using photometry from the La Silla Observatory to generate a composite light curve. The resulting data showed a rotation period of 0.2326 days (5.58 h) with a brightness variation of 0.2 in magnitude.

Diameter and albedo
According to the surveys carried out by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite IRAS, the Japanese Akari satellite and the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Taurinensis measures between 18.70 and 23.09 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo between 0.1772 and 0.270. The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link adopts the results obtained by IRAS, that is, an albedo of 0.1772 and a diameter of 23.09 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 10.72.

With a mean-diameter of 20 kilometers, Taurinensis is the 4th-largest Mars-crossing asteroids, just behind 132 Aethra (43 km), 323 Brucia (36 km) and 2204 Lyyli (25 km), and larger than 1508 Kemi (17 km), 1474 Beira (15 km) and 1310 Villigera (14 km).

Naming
This minor planet was named after "Taurinensis", the Latin name of the city of Turin, located in northern Italy. It was named in 1905, by astronomers of the Observatory of Turin with the discoverer's endorsement (AN 167, 239). The official naming citation was mentioned in The Names of the Minor Planets by Paul Herget in 1955 (H 55).