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Harmonia

40 Harmonia

An S-type silicate asteroid orbiting the Sun within the Solar System's Asteroid Belt, Harmonia is irregular in shape, with a mean diameter estimated at some 111 kilometres. Its orbit shows a low eccentricity, following an orbital path that it is only slightly elliptical, and its semi-major axis of 2.3 AU places it close the inner edge of the Belt. Each of Harmonia's orbits of the Sun takes three years and 154 days, and the asteroid rotates on its own axis over a period of 8.9 hours.

This asteroid was discovered by Hermann Goldschmidt on 31 March 1856, the day after the end of the Crimean War. Thus the selection of the name Harmonia (from the Greek goddess of harmony and peace) was a particularly apt selection.

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