Urbain Le Verrier
Atalante (minor planet designation: 36 Atalante) is a large, dark main-belt asteroid. It was discovered by the German-French astronomer H. Goldschmidt on October 5, 1855, and named by French mathematician Urbain Le Verrier after the Greek mythological heroine Atalanta (of which "Atalante" is the French and German form, pronounced nearly the same as 'Atalanta' in English). It was rendered 'Atalanta' in English sources in the 19th century. The asteroid is also classified as a C-type one, according to the Tholen classification system.