30 Urania

Also known as (30) Urania, Urania

main-belt asteroid

Picture of the Day · NASA

Jupiter and Venus from Earth

2026-06-07

It was visible around the world. The sunset conjunction of Jupiter (left) and Venus (right) in 2012 was visible almost no matter where you lived on Earth. Anyone on our planet with a clear western horizon at sunset could see them. That year, a creative photographer traveled away from the town lights of Szubin, Poland to photograph a near closest approach of the two planets. The bright planets were then separated by only three degrees and his daughter struck a humorous pose. A faint red sunset still glowed in the background. Jupiter and Venus are together again this week after sunset, passing within a degree of each other about two days from today.

Key facts

Discovered by: J. R. Hind
Discovery date: July 22, 1854
Pronunciation: / j ʊəˈr eɪ n i ə / yoor- AY -nee-ə
Named after: Urania
Alternative designations: 1948 JK
Minor planet category: Main belt

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Article

30 Urania is a large main-belt asteroid that was discovered by English astronomer John Russell Hind on July 22, 1854. It was his last asteroid discovery. This object is named after Urania, the Greek Muse of astronomy. Initial orbital elements for 30 Urania were published by Wilhelm Günther, an assistant at Breslau Observatory. It is orbiting the Sun with a period of 3.64 years and is spinning on its axis once every 13.7 hours.

Based upon its spectrum, this is classified as a stony S-type asteroid. During 2000, speckle interferometry measurements from the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo in the Canary Islands were used to measure the apparent size and shape of 30 Urania. This gave cross-sectional dimensions equivalent to an ellipse with a length of 111 km and a width of 89 km, for a ratio of 0.80.