Discovery and Name
Hygiea was discovered by Annibale de Gasparis on April 12, 1849, in Naples, Italy. It was the first of his nine asteroid discoveries. The director of the Naples observatory, Ernesto Capocci, named the asteroid. He chose to call it Igea Borbonica ("Bourbon Hygieia") in honor of the ruling family of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies where Naples was located.
However, in 1852, John Russell Hind wrote that "it is universally termed Hygeia, the unnecessary appendage 'Borbonica' being dropped." The name comes from Hygieia, the Greek goddess of health, daughter of Asclepius (Aesculapius for the Romans). The name was often spelled Hygeia in the nineteenth century, for example in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.
Read more about this topic: 10 Hygiea
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