Roman Goddess Minerva and 93 Minerva Asteroid – Leeds, UK - Extraterrestrial Locations on Waymarking.com

The Asteroid
The asteroid was discovered on August 24th 1867 by James Craig Watson, the Canadian-American director of the Detroit Observatory. He discovered a total of 22 asteroids, Minerva being his second find.

It is the 86th largest known asteroid with a diameter of 146 kilometres as measured by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite (IRAS). link

On August 16th 2009 it was discovered that 93 Minerva has two small moons. They are 4 and 3 km in diameter and separated by 630km and 380 km respectively. They were discovered by Frank Marchis , a French astronomer, and his blog explains how he did it.

The Roman Goddess Minerva
Minerva was the Roman Goddess of wisdom and war, but also as depicted here, weaving and commerce. In art she is usually depicted wearing a war helmet. She is often depicted with her sacred creature, an owl usually named as the "owl of Minerva", which symbolizes that she is connected to wisdom.

She was the daughter of Jupiter and Juno and sprang fully formed from Jupiter’s head.

The Statue
The statue was erected in March 2013 to mark the opening of a large new shopping centre in Leeds city centre. The Briggate Minerva is a 5m tall draped figure which stands on Leeds main shopping thoroughfare, drawing reference from the cloth and wool trade upon which the Yorkshire city built its fortunes.

In fitting with her surroundings the statue is a modern interpretation of Minerva. Leeds has 3 owls in its coat of arms and so instead of a war helmet she is wearing an owl figure on her head. link.

Website of the Extraterrestrial Location: [Web Link] Website of location on Earth: [Web Link] Celestial Body: Asteroid

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Date Logged Log   03/19/2017 fitzydan visited it