Discovery and Observations
24 Themis was discovered on 5 April 1853 by Annibale de Gasparis of Naples, though it was given its name by fellow Italian astronomer Angelo Secchi. The asteroid was named after Themis, the Greek goddess of law. Gravitational perturbations in the orbit of Themis were used to calculate the mass of Jupiter as early as 1875.
On 24 December 1975, 24 Themis had a close encounter with 2296 Kugultinov with a minimum distance of 0.016 AU (2,400,000 km). By analyzing the perturbation of Kugultinov's orbit due to the gravitational pull of Themis, the mass of Themis was determined to be approximately 2.89×10−11 solar masses.
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