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Both Vesta and Pallas have assumed the title of second-largest asteroid from time to time. [47] At 513 ± 3 km in diameter, [9] Pallas is slightly smaller than Vesta (525.4 ± 0.2 km [48]). The mass of Pallas is 79% ± 1% that of Vesta, 22% that of Ceres, and a quarter of one percent that of the Moon.
This asteroid was the 3rd to be discovered and is 9th in mass ranking (1 Ceres, 2 Pallas, 4 Vesta, 10 Hygiea, 511 Davida, 704 Interamnia, 65 Cybele, 52 Europa are considerably bigger and more massive). In mythology Juno is the Roman equivalent of the Greek Hera. Hera was a very important goddess in both Greek and Roman culture.
At most oppositions, however, Juno only reaches a magnitude of around +8.7 [24] —only just visible with binoculars—and at smaller elongations a 3-inch (76 mm) telescope will be required to resolve it. [25] It is the main body in the Juno family. Juno was originally considered a planet, along with 1 Ceres, 2 Pallas, and 4 Vesta. [26]
Upon its discovery, Vesta was, like Ceres, Pallas, and Juno before it, classified as a planet and given a planetary symbol. The symbol represented the altar of Vesta with its sacred fire and was designed by Gauss. [41] [42] In Gauss's conception, now obsolete, this was drawn . His form is in the pipeline for Unicode 17.0 as U+1F777 .
The astrological symbols for the first four objects discovered at the beginning of the 19th century — Ceres, Pallas, Juno and Vesta — were created shortly after their discoveries. They were initially listed as planets, and half a century later came to be called asteroids, though such "minor planets" continued to be considered planets for ...
The largest asteroids with an accurately measured mass, because they have been studied by the probe Dawn, are 1 Ceres with a mass of (939.3 ± 0.5) × 10 18 kg, and 4 Vesta at (259.076 ± 0.001) × 10 18 kg.
Ceres was assigned a planetary symbol and remained listed as a planet in astronomy books and tables (along with Pallas, Juno, and Vesta) for over half a century. [37] As other objects were discovered in the neighbourhood of Ceres, astronomers began to suspect that it represented the first of a new class of objects. [19]
In the 19th century, planetary symbols for the major asteroids were also in use, including 1 Ceres (a reaper's sickle, encoded U+26B3 ⚳ CERES), 2 Pallas (a lance, U+26B4 ⚴ PALLAS) and 3 Juno (a sceptre, encoded U+26B5 ⚵ JUNO). Encke (1850) used symbols for 5 Astraea, 6 Hebe, 7 Iris, 8 Flora and 9 Metis in the Berliner Astronomisches ...