52 Europa [SEP] discoverer or inventor
52 Europa
Europa (minor planet designation: 52 Europa) is the 6th-largest asteroid in the asteroid belt, having an average diameter of around 315 km. It is not round but is shaped like a triaxial ellipsoid of approximately 380×330×250 km. It was discovered on February 4, 1858, by Hermann Goldschmidt from his balcony in Paris. It is named after Europa, one of Zeus's conquests in Greek mythology, a name it shares with Jupiter's moon Europa.
Physical characteristics.
Europa is
in July 1954. On 1 February 1907, "Mason–Dixon" made a close approach to one of the larger asteroids, 52 Europa. At its closest, it passed Europa within 1.1 million kilometers.
Naming.
This minor planet was named by the discoverer in memory of English astronomers Charles Mason (1728–1786) and Jeremiah Dixon (1733–1779), who observed the 1761 transit of Venus from the Cape of Good Hope. Between 1763 and 1767 they surveyed the so-called Mason–Dixon line, the boundary