Hercules Slaying the Nemean Lion & the 532 Herculina Asteroid - Vienna, Austria
Posted by: Groundspeak Premium Member Metro2
N 48° 11.090 E 016° 18.760
33U E 597568 N 5337676
This sculpture is located in the lobby of Schonbrunn Palace- where tours begin. Note that this asteroid was the first to have been confirmed to have its own moon!
Waymark Code: WMK9Y4
Location: Wien, Austria
Date Posted: 03/06/2014
Published By:Groundspeak Premium Member saopaulo1
Views: 6

This is one of a pair of sculptures depicting Hercules in the lobby of the Schonbrunn Palace. The other depicts Hercules fighting the Dragon of the Hesperides
Here, Hercules wrestles with the lion which is below him and has its head twisted upwards with Hercules stretching its mouth.
A placard indicates that the sculptures were designed by Giovanni Giuliani and cast by Ubald Torri. They were made between 1714 and 1724. The placard also indicates that the hollow-cast sculptures served as hot air stoves and the hot air would come out of the mouth of the lion here and the dragon in the other work.

Hercules of course is the heroic son of Zeus (visit link)

As for the asteroid, Wikipedia (visit link) informs us:

"532 Herculina ... is a large asteroid, with a diameter of around 225 km.
It was discovered on April 20, 1904, by Max Wolf in Heidelberg, and initially catalogued as 1904 NY. The origin of its name is not known; it may be named after the mythical Hercules, or after an unknown woman of that name. The bulk of the asteroids discovered by Wolf around this date were named for characters in operas, but if this name was also drawn from such a source, no explanation has been recorded.

Physical characteristics

Herculina is one of the larger members of the main asteroid belt. It is believed to rank among the top 20 in size, but the exact dimensions of many large asteroids are still uncertain. The current estimate for its mass would rank it close to the top 10.
It has often been noted for its complex lightcurves, which made determination of its shape and rotation somewhat difficult. A set of 1982 speckle interferometry observations led to a simple preliminary model of Herculina as a three-axis object, perhaps 260 by 220 by 215 km. 1985 analysis of this data concluded there was a nonspherical shape with one bright spot, whilst a 1987 photometric astrometry study concluded the object was spherical with two dark spots (and rotated around a completely different pole), which was in turn negated by a 1988 thermal study which showed the object could not be spherical. By the late 1980s, the generally accepted model was a three-axis object with major albedo or topographical features.
Recent (2002) modelling of photometric data indicates that Herculina is not spherical, but a blocky shape not unlike a battered cuboid - or, as the analysis described it, it "resembles a toaster". This analysis indicates the presence of multiple largish craters, similar to 253 Mathilde, but no major variation in albedo. The approximate ratios of the axes were suggested as 1:1.1:1.3, broadly consistent with earlier models if slightly more elongated.

Satellites

Following anomalous observations during an occultation of the star SAO 120774 in 1978, Herculina became the first asteroid to be "confirmed" to have an asteroid moon, with the parent asteroid estimated at a 216 km diameter and a satellite of about 45 km orbiting at a distance of around 1,000 km. However, careful examination in 1993, using the Hubble Space Telescope, failed to locate a secondary."
Website of the Extraterrestrial Location: [Web Link]

Website of location on Earth: [Web Link]

Celestial Body: Asteroid

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SaschaVie visited Hercules Slaying the Nemean Lion & the 532 Herculina Asteroid  - Vienna, Austria 01/06/2018 SaschaVie visited it
TeamSO visited Hercules Slaying the Nemean Lion & the 532 Herculina Asteroid  - Vienna, Austria 05/12/2017 TeamSO visited it
lillesandler visited Hercules Slaying the Nemean Lion & the 532 Herculina Asteroid  - Vienna, Austria 07/27/2015 lillesandler visited it
Metro2 visited Hercules Slaying the Nemean Lion & the 532 Herculina Asteroid  - Vienna, Austria 09/09/2013 Metro2 visited it

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