Mathilde


Mathilde

(mă-tild ) ((253) Mathilde) A C-type main-belt asteroid, discovered in 1885 by the Austrian astronomer Johann Palisa. It was studied at close quarters in 1997 by the Near-Earth Asteroid Rendezvous (NEAR-Shoemaker) mission, which observed it to be 52 km across, with at least five craters more than 20 km across. It has an unusually long rotational period of 17.4 days.