28 Bellona


Bellona is a large main-belt asteroid. It was discovered by R. Luther on March 1, 1854, and named after Bellōna, the Roman goddess of war; the name was chosen to mark the beginning of the Crimean War.
Bellona has been studied by radar. Photometric observations of this asteroid at the Palmer Divide Observatory in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 2007 gave a light curve with a period of 15.707 ± 0.002 hours and a brightness variation of 0.27 ± 0.03 in magnitude. This report is in close agreement with a period estimate of 15.695 hours reported in 1983, and rejects a longer period of 16.523 hours reported in 1979.