971 Alsatia
971 Alsatia, provisional designation "", is a carbonaceous background asteroid from the central region of the asteroid belt, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 23 November 1921, by French astronomer Alexandre Schaumasse at Nice Observatory in southeastern France. The asteroid was named after the French province Alsace. Orbit and classification. "Alsatia" is a non-family asteroid of the main belt's background population when applying the Hierarchical Clustering Method to its proper orbital elements. It has also been dynamically classified as a member of the Eunomia family (), which has a different spectral type though. This suggests that "Alsatia  may be an interloper to that family. It orbits the Sun in the central main-belt at a distance of 2.2–3.1 AU once every 4 years and 4 months (1,569 days). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.16 and an inclination of 14° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins with its first identification as " at Heidelberg Observatory in October 1908, more than 13 years prior to its official discovery observation at Nice. Physical characteristics. In the SMASS classification, Alsatia" is a carbonaceous C-type asteroid. Rotation period. Several rotational lightcurves of "Alsatia" have been  obtained from photometric observations by Robert Stephens (2000), Laurent Bernasconi (2005), astronomer at the Oakley Southern Sky Observatory (2011), Brian Warner (2011), and Daniel Klinglesmith (2017). Lightcurve analysis gave a consolidated rotation period of 9.614 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.17 to 0.29 magnitude (). Diameter and albedo. According to the surveys carried out by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite IRAS, the Japanese Akari satellite and the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, "Alsatia" measures between 55.31 and 64.724 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo between 0.0403 and 0.05. The "Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link