Hermes Fountain And Asteroid 69230 Hermes – Budapest, Hungary
Posted by: 
dtrebilc
N 47° 29.665 E 019° 03.143
34T E 353304 N 5261947
This statue of the Greek God Hermes is standing on top of a small water fountain, with four spouts feeding a bowl. It is in one of the main shopping districts of Budapest and stands at the corner of Régiposta utca and Vaci utca.
Waymark Code: WMKVWD
Location: Budapest, Hungary
Date Posted: 06/01/2014
Views: 7
Greek God Hermes
Hermes was a Greek god of transitions and boundaries. He was quick and cunning, and moved freely between the worlds of the mortal and divine, as emissary and messenger of the gods. He was protector and patron of travellers and so a fitting god to be on the harbour gatehouse.
His attributes and symbols include the herma, the rooster and the tortoise, purse or pouch, winged sandals, winged cap, and his main symbol was the herald's staff, the Greek kerykeion or Latin caduceus which consisted of two snakes wrapped around a winged staff.
Asteroid 69230 Hermes
69230 Hermes is an Apollo, Mars- and Venus-crosser asteroid that passed Earth at about twice the distance of the Moon on October 30, 1937.
It was discovered by Karl Reinmuth and at the time, this was the closest known approach of an asteroid to the Earth. Not until 1989 was a closer approach (by 4581 Asclepius) observed. At closest approach, Hermes was moving 5° per hour across the sky and reached 8th magnitude.
On October 15, 2003, Brian A. Skiff of the LONEOS project made an asteroid observation that, when the orbit was calculated backwards in time (by Timothy B. Spahr, Steven Chesley and Paul Chodas), turned out to be a rediscovery of Hermes. The orbit is now well known, and Hermes has been assigned sequential number 69230. In retrospect it turned out that Hermes came even closer to the Earth in 1942 than in 1937, within 1.7 Moon distances, without being observed.
Radar observations led by Jean-Luc Margot at Arecibo Observatory and Goldstone in October and November 2003 showed Hermes to be a binary asteroid. The primary and secondary components have nearly identical radii of 300–450 m (980–1,480 ft), and their orbital separation is only 1200 m.
Karl Wilhelm Reinmuth (April 4, 1892 in Heidelberg – May 6, 1979) was a German astronomer.
He was a prolific discoverer of asteroids (almost 400 of them), beginning with 796 Sarita in 1914, working at the Landessternwarte Heidelberg-Königstuhl astronomical observatory on the Königstuhl hill above Heidelberg, Germany from 1912 to 1957.
Website of the Extraterrestrial Location: [Web Link]
Celestial Body: Asteroid
Website of location on Earth: Not listed
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