88 Thisbe is the 13th largest main-belt asteroid. C. H. F. Peters discovered it on 15 June 1866, named after Thisbe, heroine of a Roman fable. This asteroid orbits the Sun at a distance of over a period of and an orbital eccentricity (ovalness) of 0.165. The orbital plane is inclined at an angle of 5.219° to the ecliptic.
On 7 October 1981, asteroid 88 Thisbe was observed to occult the 9th-magnitude star SAO 187124 from 12 sites. The timing of the different chords across the asteroid provided a diameter estimate of . This is 10% larger than the diameter estimate based on radiometric techniques.Observed minor planet occultation events, version of 2005 July 26 During 2000, 88 Thisbe was observed by radar from the Arecibo Observatory. The return signal matched an effective diameter of 207 ± 22 km. This is consistent with the asteroid dimensions computed through other means.
Photometric observations of this asteroid during 1977 gave a light curve with a period of 6.0422 ± 0.006 hours and a brightness variation of 0.19 in magnitude.
Perturbation
Asteroid 7 Iris has perturbed Thisbe; in 2001, Michalak estimated it to have a mass of 15 kg. But Iris is strongly perturbed by many minor planets such as 10 Hygiea and 15 Eunomia.
In 2008, Baer estimated Thisbe to have a mass of 10.5 kg. In 2011, Baer revised this to 18.3 kg with an uncertainty of 1.1 kg.
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