title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: Louis-Philippe ascended the throne on the strength of the July Revolution of 1830, and ruled, not as "King of France" but as "King of the French", marking the shift to national sovereignty. The Orléanists remained in power until 1848. Following the ousting of the last king to rule France during the February 1848 Revolution, the French Second Republic was formed with the election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte as President (1848–1852). In the French coup of 1851, Napoleon declared himself Emperor Napoleon III of the Second Empire, which lasted from 1852 to 1870.


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: Political parties saw substantial changes of alignment and membership under the Restoration. The Chamber of Deputies oscillated between repressive "ultra-royalist" phases and progressive "liberal" phases. The repression of the "White Terror" excluded opponents of the monarchy from the political scene, but individuals of influence who had different visions of the French constitutional monarchy still clashed.


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: All parties remained fearful of the common people, who had no voting rights and whom Adolphe Thiers later referred to by the term "cheap multitude". Their political sights were set on a class favoritism. Political changes in the Chamber were due to abuse by the majority tendency, involving a dissolution and then an inversion of the majority, or critical events; for example, the assassination of the Duc de Berry in 1820.


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: Disputes were a power struggle between the powerful (royalty against deputies) rather than a fight between royalty and populism. Although the deputies claimed to defend the interests of the people, most had an important fear of common people, of innovations, of socialism and even of simple measures, such as the extension of voting rights.


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: The Ultra-royalists wished for a return to the "Ancien Régime" which prevailed before 1789: absolute monarchy, domination by the nobility, and the monopoly of politics by "devoted Christians". They were anti-Republican, anti-democratic, and preached "Government on High". Although they tolerated "vote censitaire," a form of democracy limited to those paying taxes above a high threshold, they found the Charter of 1814 to be too revolutionary. They wanted a re-establishment of privileges, a major political role for the Catholic Church, and a politically active, rather than ceremonial, king: Charles X.


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: Prominent ultra-royalist theorists were Louis de Bonald and Joseph de Maistre. Their parliamentary leaders were , comte de La Bretèche and, in 1829, Jules de Polignac. The main royalist newspapers were "La Quotidienne" and "La Gazette," supplemented by the "Drapeau Blanc", named after the Bourbon white flag, and the "Oriflamme", named after the battle standard of France.


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: The "Doctrinaires" were mostly rich and educated middle-class men: lawyers, senior officials of the Empire, and academics. They feared the triumph of the aristocracy, as much as that of the democrats. They accepted the Royal Charter as a guarantee of freedom and civil equality which nevertheless reined in the ignorant and excitable masses. Ideologically they were classical liberals who formed the centre-right of the Restoration's political spectrum: they upheld both capitalism and Catholicism, and attempted to reconcile parliamentarism (in an elite, wealth-based form) and monarchism (in a constitutional, ceremonial form), while rejecting both the absolutism and clericalism of the Ultra-Royalists, and the universal suffrage of the liberal left and republicans. Important personalities were Pierre Paul Royer-Collard, François Guizot, and the count of Serre. Their newspapers were "Le Courrier français" and "Le Censeur".


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: The Liberals were mostly petite-bourgeoisie: doctors and lawyers, men of law, and, in rural constituencies, merchants and traders of national goods. Electorally they benefitted from the slow emergence of a new middle-class elite, due to the start of the Industrial Revolution.


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: Some of them accepted the principle of monarchy, in a strictly ceremonial and parliamentary form, while others were moderate republicans. Constitutional issues aside, they agreed on seeking to restore the democratic principles of the French Revolution, such as the weakening of clerical and aristocratic power, and therefore thought the constitutional Charter was not suffiçiently democratic, and disliked the peace treaties of 1815, the White Terror and the return to pre-eminence of clergy and of nobility. They wished to lower the taxable quota to support the middle-class as a whole, to the detriment of the aristocracy, and this they supported universal suffrage or at least a wide opening-up of the electoral system to the modest middle-classes such as farmers and craftsmen. Important personalities were parliamentary monarchist Benjamin Constant, officer of the Empire Maximilien Sebastien Foy, republican lawyer Jacques-Antoine Manuel, and the Marquis de Lafayette. Their newspapers were "La Minerve", "Le Constitutionnel", and "Le Globe".


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: The only active Republicans were on the left to far-left, based among the workers. Workers had no vote and were not listened to. Their demonstrations were repressed or diverted, causing, at most, a reinforcement of parliamentarism, which did not mean democratic evolution, only wider taxation. For some, such as Blanqui, revolution seemed the only solution. Garnier-Pagès, and Louis-Eugène and Éléonore-Louis Godefroi Cavaignac considered themselves to be Republicans, while Cabet and Raspail were active as socialists. Saint-Simon was also active during this period, and made direct appeals to Louis XVIII before his death in 1824.


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: By 1800 the Catholic Church was poor, dilapidated and disorganised, with a depleted and aging clergy. The younger generation had received little religious instruction, and was unfamiliar with traditional worship. However, in response to the external pressures of foreign wars, religious fervour was strong, especially among women. Napoleon's Concordat of 1801 provided stability and ended attacks on the Church.


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: With the Restoration, the Catholic Church again became the state religion, supported financially and politically by the government. Its lands and financial endowments were not returned, but the government paid salaries and maintenance costs for normal church activities. The bishops regained control of Catholic affairs. The aristocracy before the Revolution was lukewarm to religious doctrine and practice, but the decades of exile created an alliance of throne and altar. The royalists who returned were much more devout, and much more aware of their need for a close alliance with the Church. They had discarded fashionable skepticism and now promoted the wave of Catholic religiosity that was sweeping Europe, with a new reverence for the Virgin Mary, the saints, and popular religious rituals such as praying the rosary. Devotion was far stronger and more visible in rural areas than in Paris and other cities. The population of 32 million included about 680,000 Protestants and 60,000 Jews, who were extended toleration. The anti-clericalism of Voltaire and the Enlightenment had not disappeared, but it was in abeyance.


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: At the elite level, there was a dramatic change in intellectual climate from intellectual classicism to passionate romanticism. An 1802 book by François-René de Chateaubriand entitled "Génie du christianisme" ("The Genius of Christianity") had an enormous influence in reshaping French literature and intellectual life, emphasising the centrality of religion in creating European high culture. Chateaubriand's book "did more than any other single work to restore the credibility and prestige of Christianity in intellectual circles and launched a fashionable rediscovery of the Middle Ages and their Christian civilisation. The revival was by no means confined to an intellectual elite, however, but was evident in the real, if uneven, rechristianisation of the French countryside."


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: With the restoration of the Bourbons in 1814, the reactionary aristocracy with its disdain for entrepreneurship returned to power. British goods flooded the market, and France responded with high tariffs and protectionism to protect its established businesses, especially handcrafts and small-scale manufacturing such as textiles. The tariff on iron goods reached 120%. Agriculture had never needed protection, but now demanded it due to the lower prices of imported foodstuffs, such as Russian grain. French winegrowers strongly supported the tariff – their wines did not need it, but they insisted on a high tariff on the import of tea. One agrarian deputy explained: "Tea breaks down our national character by converting those who use it often into cold and stuffy Nordic types, while wine arouses in the soul that gentle gaiety that gives Frenchmen their amiable and witty national character." The French government falsified official statistics to claim that exports and imports were growing – actually there was stagnation, and the economic crisis of 1826-29 disillusioned the business community and readied them to support the revolution in 1830.


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: Romanticism reshaped art and literature. It stimulated the emergence of a wide new middle class audience.


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: The city grew slowly in population from 714,000 in 1817 to 786,000 in 1831. During the period Parisians saw the first public transport system, the first gas street lights, and the first uniformed Paris policemen. In July 1830, a popular uprising in the streets of Paris brought down the Bourbon monarchy.


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: After two decades of war and revolution, the restoration brought peace and quiet, and general prosperity. Gordon Wright says, "Frenchmen were, on the whole, well governed, prosperous, contented during the 15-year period; one historian even describes the restoration era as 'one of the happiest periods in [France's] history.


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: France had recovered from the strain and disorganization, the wars, the killings, the horrors, of two decades of disruption. It was at peace throughout the period. It paid a large war indemnity to the winners, but managed to finance that without distress; the occupation soldiers left peacefully. France's population increased by three million, and prosperity was strong from 1815 to 1825, with the depression of 1825 caused by bad harvests. The national credit was strong, there was significant increase in public wealth, and the national budget showed a surplus every year. In the private sector, banking grew dramatically, making Paris a world center for finance, along with London. The Rothschild family was world-famous, with the French branch led by James Mayer de Rothschild (1792–1868). The communication system was improved, as roads were upgraded, canals were lengthened, and steamboat traffic became common. Industrialization was delayed in comparison to Britain and Belgium. The railway system had yet to make an appearance. Industry was heavily protected with tariffs, so there was little demand for entrepreneurship or innovation.


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: Culture flourished with the new romantic impulses. Oratory was highly regarded, and sophisticated debate flourished. Châteaubriand and Madame de Stael (1766-1817) enjoyed Europe-wide reputations for their innovations in romantic literature. She made important contributions to political sociology, and the sociology of literature. History flourished; François Guizot, Benjamin Constant and Madame de Staël drew lessons from the past to guide the future. The paintings of Eugène Delacroix set the standards for romantic art. Music, theater, science, and philosophy all flourished. The higher learning flourished at the Sorbonne. Major new institutions gave France world leadership in numerous advanced fields, as typified by the École Nationale des Chartes (1821) for historiography, the École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures in 1829 for innovative engineering; and the École des Beaux-Arts for the fine arts, reestablished in 1830.


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: Charles X repeatedly exacerbated internal tensions, and tried to neutralize his enemies with repressive measures. They totally failed and forced him into exile for the third time. However the government's handling of foreign affairs was a success. France kept a low profile, and Europe forgot its animosities. Louis and Charles had little interest in foreign affairs, so France played only minor roles. For example, it helped the other powers deal with Greece and Turkey. Charles X mistakenly thought that foreign glory would cover domestic frustration, so he made an all-out effort to conquer Algiers in 1830. He sent a massive force of 38,000 soldiers and 4,500 horses carried by 103 warships and 469 merchant ships. The expedition was a dramatic military success. It even paid for itself with captured treasures. The episode launched the second French colonial empire, but it did not provide desperately needed political support for the King at home.


title: Bourbon Restoration in France

text: The French historical film "Jacquou le Croquant", directed by Laurent Boutonnat and starring Gaspard Ulliel and Marie-Josée Croze, is based on the Bourbon Restoration.


title: Asteroid

text: An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere.


title: Asteroid

text: Of the roughly one million known asteroids the greatest number are located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, approximately 2 to 4 AU from the Sun, in the main asteroid belt. Asteroids are generally classified to be of three types: C-type, M-type, and S-type. These were named after and are generally identified with carbonaceous, metallic, and silicaceous compositions, respectively. The size of asteroids varies greatly; the largest, Ceres, is almost across and qualifies as a dwarf planet. The total mass of all the asteroids combined is only 3% that of Earth's Moon. The majority of main belt asteroids follow slightly elliptical, stable orbits, revolving in the same direction as the Earth and taking from three to six years to complete a full circuit of the Sun.


title: Asteroid

text: Asteroids have been historically observed from Earth; the "Galileo" spacecraft provided the first close observation of an asteroid. Several dedicated missions to asteroids were subsequently launched by NASA and JAXA, with plans for other missions in progress. NASA's "NEAR Shoemaker" studied Eros, and "Dawn" observed Vesta and Ceres. JAXA's missions "Hayabusa" and "Hayabusa2" studied and returned samples of Itokawa and Ryugu, respectively. OSIRIS-REx studied Bennu, collecting a sample in 2020 to be delivered back to Earth in 2023. NASA's "Lucy", launched in 2021, will study eight different asteroids, one from the main belt and seven Jupiter trojans. "Psyche", scheduled for launch in 2023, will study a metallic asteroid of the same name.


title: Asteroid

text: Near-Earth asteroids can threaten all life on the planet; an asteroid impact event resulted in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction. Different asteroid deflection strategies have been proposed; the Double Asteroid Redirection Test spacecraft, or DART, was launched in 2021 and intentionally impacted Dimorphos in September 2022, successfully altering its orbit by crashing into it.


title: Asteroid

text: Only one asteroid, 4 Vesta, which has a relatively reflective surface, is normally visible to the naked eye. When favorably positioned, 4 Vesta can be seen in dark skies. Rarely, small asteroids passing close to Earth may be visible to the naked eye for a short time. , the Minor Planet Center had data on 1,199,224 minor planets in the inner and outer Solar System, of which about 614,690 had enough information to be given numbered designations.


title: Asteroid

text: In 1772, German astronomer Johann Elert Bode, citing Johann Daniel Titius, published a numerical procession known as the Titius–Bode law (now discredited). Except for an unexplained gap between Mars and Jupiter, Bode's formula seemed to predict the orbits of the known planets. He wrote the following explanation for the existence of a "missing planet":


title: Asteroid

text: This latter point seems in particular to follow from the astonishing relation which the known six planets observe in their distances from the Sun. Let the distance from the Sun to Saturn be taken as 100, then Mercury is separated by 4 such parts from the Sun. Venus is 4 + 3 = 7. The Earth 4 + 6 = 10. Mars 4 + 12 = 16. Now comes a gap in this so orderly progression. After Mars there follows a space of 4 + 24 = 28 parts, in which no planet has yet been seen. Can one believe that the Founder of the universe had left this space empty? Certainly not. From here we come to the distance of Jupiter by 4 + 48 = 52 parts, and finally to that of Saturn by 4 + 96 = 100 parts.


title: Asteroid

text: Bode's formula predicted another planet would be found with an orbital radius near 2.8 astronomical units (AU), or 420 million km, from the Sun. The Titius–Bode law got a boost with William Herschel's discovery of Uranus near the predicted distance for a planet beyond Saturn. In 1800, a group headed by Franz Xaver von Zach, editor of the German astronomical journal "Monatliche Correspondenz" (Monthly Correspondence), sent requests to 24 experienced astronomers (whom he dubbed the "celestial police"), asking that they combine their efforts and begin a methodical search for the expected planet. Although they did not discover Ceres, they later found the asteroids 2 Pallas, 3 Juno and 4 Vesta.


title: Asteroid

text: One of the astronomers selected for the search was Giuseppe Piazzi, a Catholic priest at the Academy of Palermo, Sicily. Before receiving his invitation to join the group, Piazzi discovered Ceres on 1 January 1801. He was searching for "the 87th [star] of the Catalogue of the Zodiacal stars of Mr la Caille", but found that "it was preceded by another". Instead of a star, Piazzi had found a moving star-like object, which he first thought was a comet:


title: Asteroid

text: The light was a little faint, and of the colour of Jupiter, but similar to many others which generally are reckoned of the eighth magnitude. Therefore I had no doubt of its being any other than a fixed star. [...] The evening of the third, my suspicion was converted into certainty, being assured it was not a fixed star. Nevertheless before I made it known, I waited till the evening of the fourth, when I had the satisfaction to see it had moved at the same rate as on the preceding days.


title: Asteroid

text: Piazzi observed Ceres a total of 24 times, the final time on 11 February 1801, when illness interrupted his work. He announced his discovery on 24 January 1801 in letters to only two fellow astronomers, his compatriot Barnaba Oriani of Milan and Bode in Berlin. He reported it as a comet but "since its movement is so slow and rather uniform, it has occurred to me several times that it might be something better than a comet". In April, Piazzi sent his complete observations to Oriani, Bode, and French astronomer Jérôme Lalande. The information was published in the September 1801 issue of the "Monatliche Correspondenz".


title: Asteroid

text: By this time, the apparent position of Ceres had changed (mostly due to Earth's motion around the Sun), and was too close to the Sun's glare for other astronomers to confirm Piazzi's observations. Toward the end of the year, Ceres should have been visible again, but after such a long time it was difficult to predict its exact position. To recover Ceres, mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss, then 24 years old, developed an efficient method of orbit determination. In a few weeks, he predicted the path of Ceres and sent his results to von Zach. On 31 December 1801, von Zach and fellow celestial policeman Heinrich W. M. Olbers found Ceres near the predicted position and thus recovered it. At 2.8 AU from the Sun, Ceres appeared to fit the Titius–Bode law almost perfectly; however, Neptune, once discovered in 1846, was 8 AU closer than predicted, leading most astronomers to conclude that the law was a coincidence. Piazzi named the newly discovered object "Ceres Ferdinandea," "in honor of the patron goddess of Sicily and of King Ferdinand of Bourbon".


title: Asteroid

text: Three other asteroids (2 Pallas, 3 Juno, and 4 Vesta) were discovered by von Zach's group over the next few years, with Vesta found in 1807. No new asteroids were discovered until 1845. Amateur astronomer Karl Ludwig Hencke started his searches of new asteroids in 1830, and fifteen years later, while looking for Vesta, he found the asteroid later named 5 Astraea. It was the first new asteroid discovery in 38 years. Carl Friedrich Gauss was given the honour of naming the asteroid. After this, other astronomers joined; 15 asteroids were found by the end of 1851. In 1868, when James Craig Watson discovered the 100th asteroid, the French Academy of Sciences engraved the faces of Karl Theodor Robert Luther, John Russell Hind, and Hermann Goldschmidt, the three most successful asteroid-hunters at that time, on a commemorative medallion marking the event.


title: Asteroid

text: In 1891, Max Wolf pioneered the use of astrophotography to detect asteroids, which appeared as short streaks on long-exposure photographic plates. This dramatically increased the rate of detection compared with earlier visual methods: Wolf alone discovered 248 asteroids, beginning with 323 Brucia, whereas only slightly more than 300 had been discovered up to that point. It was known that there were many more, but most astronomers did not bother with them, some calling them "vermin of the skies", a phrase variously attributed to Eduard Suess and Edmund Weiss. Even a century later, only a few thousand asteroids were identified, numbered and named.


title: Asteroid

text: In the past, asteroids were discovered by a four-step process. First, a region of the sky was photographed by a wide-field telescope, or astrograph. Pairs of photographs were taken, typically one hour apart. Multiple pairs could be taken over a series of days. Second, the two films or plates of the same region were viewed under a stereoscope. A body in orbit around the Sun would move slightly between the pair of films. Under the stereoscope, the image of the body would seem to float slightly above the background of stars. Third, once a moving body was identified, its location would be measured precisely using a digitizing microscope. The location would be measured relative to known star locations.


title: Asteroid

text: These first three steps do not constitute asteroid discovery: the observer has only found an apparition, which gets a provisional designation, made up of the year of discovery, a letter representing the half-month of discovery, and finally a letter and a number indicating the discovery's sequential number (example: ). The last step is sending the locations and time of observations to the Minor Planet Center, where computer programs determine whether an apparition ties together earlier apparitions into a single orbit. If so, the object receives a catalogue number and the observer of the first apparition with a calculated orbit is declared the discoverer, and granted the honor of naming the object subject to the approval of the International Astronomical Union.


title: Asteroid

text: By 1851, the Royal Astronomical Society decided that asteroids were being discovered at such a rapid rate that a different system was needed to categorize or name asteroids. In 1852, when de Gasparis discovered the twentieth asteroid, Benjamin Valz gave it a name and a number designating its rank among asteroid discoveries, 20 Massalia. Sometimes asteroids were discovered and not seen again. So, starting in 1892, new asteroids were listed by the year and a capital letter indicating the order in which the asteroid's orbit was calculated and registered within that specific year. For example, the first two asteroids discovered in 1892 were labeled 1892A and 1892B. However, there were not enough letters in the alphabet for all of the asteroids discovered in 1893, so 1893Z was followed by 1893AA. A number of variations of these methods were tried, including designations that included year plus a Greek letter in 1914. A simple chronological numbering system was established in 1925.


title: Asteroid

text: Currently all newly discovered asteroids receive a provisional designation (such as ) consisting of the year of discovery and an alphanumeric code indicating the half-month of discovery and the sequence within that half-month. Once an asteroid's orbit has been confirmed, it is given a number, and later may also be given a name (e.g. ). The formal naming convention uses parentheses around the number – e.g. (433) Eros – but dropping the parentheses is quite common. Informally, it is also common to drop the number altogether, or to drop it after the first mention when a name is repeated in running text. In addition, names can be proposed by the asteroid's discoverer, within guidelines established by the International Astronomical Union.


title: Asteroid

text: The first asteroids to be discovered were assigned iconic symbols like the ones traditionally used to designate the planets. By 1855 there were two dozen asteroid symbols, which often occurred in multiple variants.


title: Asteroid

text: In 1851, after the fifteenth asteroid, Eunomia, had been discovered, Johann Franz Encke made a major change in the upcoming 1854 edition of the "Berliner Astronomisches Jahrbuch" (BAJ, "Berlin Astronomical Yearbook"). He introduced a disk (circle), a traditional symbol for a star, as the generic symbol for an asteroid. The circle was then numbered in order of discovery to indicate a specific asteroid. The numbered-circle convention was quickly adopted by astronomers, and the next asteroid to be discovered (16 Psyche, in 1852) was the first to be designated in that way at the time of its discovery. However, Psyche was given an iconic symbol as well, as were a few other asteroids discovered over the next few years. 20 Massalia was the first asteroid that was not assigned an iconic symbol, and no iconic symbols were created after the 1855 discovery of 37 Fides.


title: Asteroid

text: The first discovered asteroid, Ceres, was originally considered a new planet. It was followed by the discovery of other similar bodies, which with the equipment of the time appeared to be points of light like stars, showing little or no planetary disc, though readily distinguishable from stars due to their apparent motions. This prompted the astronomer Sir William Herschel to propose the term "asteroid", coined in Greek as ἀστεροειδής, or "asteroeidēs", meaning 'star-like, star-shaped', and derived from the Ancient Greek "astēr" 'star, planet'. In the early second half of the 19th century, the terms "asteroid" and "planet" (not always qualified as "minor") were still used interchangeably.


title: Asteroid

text: Traditionally, small bodies orbiting the Sun were classified as comets, asteroids, or meteoroids, with anything smaller than one meter across being called a meteoroid. The term "asteroid" never had a formal definition, with the broader term "small Solar System bodies" being preferred by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). As no IAU definition exists, asteroid can be defined as "an irregularly shaped rocky body orbiting the Sun that does not qualify as a planet or a dwarf planet under the IAU definitions of those terms".


title: Asteroid

text: When found, asteroids were seen as a class of objects distinct from comets, and there was no unified term for the two until "small Solar System body" was coined in 2006. The main difference between an asteroid and a comet is that a comet shows a coma due to sublimation of near-surface ices by solar radiation. A few objects have ended up being dual-listed because they were first classified as minor planets but later showed evidence of cometary activity. Conversely, some (perhaps all) comets are eventually depleted of their surface volatile ices and become asteroid-like. A further distinction is that comets typically have more eccentric orbits than most asteroids; "asteroids" with notably eccentric orbits are probably dormant or extinct comets.


title: Asteroid

text: For almost two centuries, from the discovery of Ceres in 1801 until the discovery of the first centaur, 2060 Chiron in 1977, all known asteroids spent most of their time at or within the orbit of Jupiter, though a few such as 944 Hidalgo ventured far beyond Jupiter for part of their orbit. When astronomers started finding more small bodies that permanently resided further out than Jupiter, now called centaurs, they numbered them among the traditional asteroids. There was debate over whether these objects should be considered asteroids or given a new classification. Then, when the first trans-Neptunian object (other than Pluto), 15760 Albion, was discovered in 1992, and especially when large numbers of similar objects started turning up, new terms were invented to sidestep the issue: Kuiper-belt object, trans-Neptunian object, scattered-disc object, and so on. They inhabit the cold outer reaches of the Solar System where ices remain solid and comet-like bodies are not expected to exhibit much cometary activity; if centaurs or trans-Neptunian objects were to venture close to the Sun, their volatile ices would sublimate, and traditional approaches would classify them as comets and not asteroids.


title: Asteroid

text: The innermost of these are the Kuiper-belt objects, called "objects" partly to avoid the need to classify them as asteroids or comets. They are thought to be predominantly comet-like in composition, though some may be more akin to asteroids. Furthermore, most do not have the highly eccentric orbits associated with comets, and the ones so far discovered are larger than traditional comet nuclei. (The much more distant Oort cloud is hypothesized to be the main reservoir of dormant comets.) Other recent observations, such as the analysis of the cometary dust collected by the "Stardust" probe, are increasingly blurring the distinction between comets and asteroids, suggesting "a continuum between asteroids and comets" rather than a sharp dividing line.


title: Asteroid

text: The minor planets beyond Jupiter's orbit are sometimes also called "asteroids", especially in popular presentations. However, it is becoming increasingly common for the term "asteroid" to be restricted to minor planets of the inner Solar System. Therefore, this article will restrict itself for the most part to the classical asteroids: objects of the asteroid belt, Jupiter trojans, and near-Earth objects.


title: Asteroid

text: When the IAU introduced the class small Solar System bodies in 2006 to include most objects previously classified as minor planets and comets, they created the class of dwarf planets for the largest minor planets – those that have enough mass to have become ellipsoidal under their own gravity. According to the IAU, "the term 'minor planet' may still be used, but generally, the term 'Small Solar System Body' will be preferred." Currently only the largest object in the asteroid belt, Ceres, at about across, has been placed in the dwarf planet category.


title: Asteroid

text: Many asteroids are the shattered remnants of planetesimals, bodies within the young Sun's solar nebula that never grew large enough to become planets. It is thought that planetesimals in the asteroid belt evolved much like the rest of objects in the solar nebula until Jupiter neared its current mass, at which point excitation from orbital resonances with Jupiter ejected over 99% of planetesimals in the belt. Simulations and a discontinuity in spin rate and spectral properties suggest that asteroids larger than approximately in diameter accreted during that early era, whereas smaller bodies are fragments from collisions between asteroids during or after the Jovian disruption. Ceres and Vesta grew large enough to melt and differentiate, with heavy metallic elements sinking to the core, leaving rocky minerals in the crust.


title: Asteroid

text: In the Nice model, many Kuiper-belt objects are captured in the outer asteroid belt, at distances greater than 2.6 AU. Most were later ejected by Jupiter, but those that remained may be the D-type asteroids, and possibly include Ceres.


title: Asteroid

text: Various dynamical groups of asteroids have been discovered orbiting in the inner Solar System. Their orbits are perturbed by the gravity of other bodies in the Solar System and by the Yarkovsky effect. Significant populations include:


title: Asteroid

text: The majority of known asteroids orbit within the asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, generally in relatively low-eccentricity (i.e. not very elongated) orbits. This belt is estimated to contain between 1.1 and 1.9 million asteroids larger than in diameter, and millions of smaller ones. These asteroids may be remnants of the protoplanetary disk, and in this region the accretion of planetesimals into planets during the formative period of the Solar System was prevented by large gravitational perturbations by Jupiter.


title: Asteroid

text: Contrary to popular imagery, the asteroid belt is mostly empty. The asteroids are spread over such a large volume that reaching an asteroid without aiming carefully would be improbable. Nonetheless, hundreds of thousands of asteroids are currently known, and the total number ranges in the millions or more, depending on the lower size cutoff. Over 200 asteroids are known to be larger than 100 km, and a survey in the infrared wavelengths has shown that the asteroid belt has between 700,000 and 1.7 million asteroids with a diameter of 1 km or more. The absolute magnitudes of most of the known asteroids are between 11 and 19, with the median at about 16.


title: Asteroid

text: The total mass of the asteroid belt is estimated to be kg, which is just 3% of the mass of the Moon; the mass of the Kuiper Belt and Scattered Disk is over 100 times as large. The four largest objects, Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea, account for maybe 62% of the belt's total mass, with 39% accounted for by Ceres alone.


title: Asteroid

text: Trojans are populations that share an orbit with a larger planet or moon, but do not collide with it because they orbit in one of the two Lagrangian points of stability, and , which lie 60° ahead of and behind the larger body.


title: Asteroid

text: In the Solar System, most known trojans share the orbit of Jupiter. They are divided into the Greek camp at (ahead of Jupiter) and the Trojan camp at (trailing Jupiter). More than a million Jupiter trojans larger than one kilometer are thought to exist, of which more than 7,000 are currently catalogued. In other planetary orbits only nine Mars trojans, 28 Neptune trojans, two Uranus trojans, and two Earth trojans, have been found to date. A temporary Venus trojan is also known. Numerical orbital dynamics stability simulations indicate that Saturn and Uranus probably do not have any primordial trojans.


title: Asteroid

text: Near-Earth asteroids, or NEAs, are asteroids that have orbits that pass close to that of Earth. Asteroids that actually cross Earth's orbital path are known as "Earth-crossers". , a total of 28,772 near-Earth asteroids were known; 878 have a diameter of one kilometer or larger.


title: Asteroid

text: A small number of NEAs are extinct comets that have lost their volatile surface materials, although having a faint or intermittent comet-like tail does not necessarily result in a classification as a near-Earth comet, making the boundaries somewhat fuzzy. The rest of the near-Earth asteroids are driven out of the asteroid belt by gravitational interactions with Jupiter.


title: Asteroid

text: Many asteroids have natural satellites (minor-planet moons). , there were 85 NEAs known to have at least one moon, including three known to have two moons. The asteroid 3122 Florence, one of the largest potentially hazardous asteroids with a diameter of , has two moons measuring across, which were discovered by radar imaging during the asteroid's 2017 approach to Earth.


title: Asteroid

text: Near-Earth asteroids are divided into groups based on their semi-major axis (a), perihelion distance (q), and aphelion distance (Q):


title: Asteroid

text: It is unclear whether Martian moons Phobos and Deimos are captured asteroids or were formed due to impact event on Mars. Phobos and Deimos both have much in common with carbonaceous C-type asteroids, with spectra, albedo, and density very similar to those of C- or D-type asteroids. Based on their similarity, one hypothesis is that both moons may be captured main-belt asteroids. Both moons have very circular orbits which lie almost exactly in Mars's equatorial plane, and hence a capture origin requires a mechanism for circularizing the initially highly eccentric orbit, and adjusting its inclination into the equatorial plane, most probably by a combination of atmospheric drag and tidal forces, although it is not clear whether sufficient time was available for this to occur for Deimos. Capture also requires dissipation of energy. The current Martian atmosphere is too thin to capture a Phobos-sized object by atmospheric braking. Geoffrey A. Landis has pointed out that the capture could have occurred if the original body was a binary asteroid that separated under tidal forces.


title: Asteroid

text: Phobos could be a second-generation Solar System object that coalesced in orbit after Mars formed, rather than forming concurrently out of the same birth cloud as Mars.


title: Asteroid

text: Another hypothesis is that Mars was once surrounded by many Phobos- and Deimos-sized bodies, perhaps ejected into orbit around it by a collision with a large planetesimal. The high porosity of the interior of Phobos (based on the density of 1.88 g/cm, voids are estimated to comprise 25 to 35 percent of Phobos's volume) is inconsistent with an asteroidal origin. Observations of Phobos in the thermal infrared suggest a composition containing mainly phyllosilicates, which are well known from the surface of Mars. The spectra are distinct from those of all classes of chondrite meteorites, again pointing away from an asteroidal origin. Both sets of findings support an origin of Phobos from material ejected by an impact on Mars that reaccreted in Martian orbit, similar to the prevailing theory for the origin of Earth's moon.


title: Asteroid

text: Asteroids vary greatly in size, from almost for the largest down to rocks just 1 meter across, below which an object is classified as a meteoroid. The three largest are very much like miniature planets: they are roughly spherical, have at least partly differentiated interiors, and are thought to be surviving protoplanets. The vast majority, however, are much smaller and are irregularly shaped; they are thought to be either battered planetesimals or fragments of larger bodies.


title: Asteroid

text: The dwarf planet Ceres is by far the largest asteroid, with a diameter of . The next largest are 4 Vesta and 2 Pallas, both with diameters of just over . Vesta is the brightest of the four main-belt asteroids that can, on occasion, be visible to the naked eye. On some rare occasions, a near-Earth asteroid may briefly become visible without technical aid; see 99942 Apophis.


title: Asteroid

text: The mass of all the objects of the asteroid belt, lying between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, is estimated to be , ≈ 3.25% of the mass of the Moon. Of this, Ceres comprises , about 40% of the total. Adding in the next three most massive objects, Vesta (11%), Pallas (8.5%), and Hygiea (3–4%), brings this figure up to a bit over 60%, whereas the next seven most-massive asteroids bring the total up to 70%. The number of asteroids increases rapidly as their individual masses decrease.


title: Asteroid

text: The number of asteroids decreases markedly with increasing size. Although the size distribution generally follows a power law, there are 'bumps' at about and , where more asteroids than expected from such a curve are found. Most asteroids larger than approximately 120 km in diameter are primordial (surviving from the accretion epoch), whereas most smaller asteroids are products of fragmentation of primordial asteroids. The primordial population of the main belt was probably 200 times what it is today.


title: Asteroid

text: Three largest objects in the asteroid belt, Ceres, Vesta, and Pallas, are intact protoplanets that share many characteristics common to planets, and are atypical compared to the majority of irregularly shaped asteroids. The fourth-largest asteroid, Hygiea, appears nearly spherical although it may have an undifferentiated interior, like the majority of asteroids. The four largest asteroids constitute half the mass of the asteroid belt.


title: Asteroid

text: Ceres is the only asteroid that appears to have a plastic shape under its own gravity and hence the only one that is a dwarf planet. It has a much higher absolute magnitude than the other asteroids, of around 3.32, and may possess a surface layer of ice. Like the planets, Ceres is differentiated: it has a crust, a mantle and a core. No meteorites from Ceres have been found on Earth.


title: Asteroid

text: Vesta, too, has a differentiated interior, though it formed inside the Solar System's frost line, and so is devoid of water; its composition is mainly of basaltic rock with minerals such as olivine. Aside from the large crater at its southern pole, Rheasilvia, Vesta also has an ellipsoidal shape. Vesta is the parent body of the Vestian family and other V-type asteroids, and is the source of the HED meteorites, which constitute 5% of all meteorites on Earth.


title: Asteroid

text: Pallas is unusual in that, like Uranus, it rotates on its side, with its axis of rotation tilted at high angles to its orbital plane. Its composition is similar to that of Ceres: high in carbon and silicon, and perhaps partially differentiated. Pallas is the parent body of the Palladian family of asteroids.


title: Asteroid

text: Hygiea is the largest carbonaceous asteroid and, unlike the other largest asteroids, lies relatively close to the plane of the ecliptic. It is the largest member and presumed parent body of the Hygiean family of asteroids. Because there is no sufficiently large crater on the surface to be the source of that family, as there is on Vesta, it is thought that Hygiea may have been completely disrupted in the collision that formed the Hygiean family and recoalesced after losing a bit less than 2% of its mass. Observations taken with the Very Large Telescope's SPHERE imager in 2017 and 2018, revealed that Hygiea has a nearly spherical shape, which is consistent both with it being in hydrostatic equilibrium, or formerly being in hydrostatic equilibrium, or with being disrupted and recoalescing.


title: Asteroid

text: Internal differentiation of large asteroids is possibly related to their lack of natural satellites, as satellites of main belt asteroids are mostly believed to form from collisional disruption, creating a rubble pile structure.


title: Asteroid

text: Measurements of the rotation rates of large asteroids in the asteroid belt show that there is an upper limit. Very few asteroids with a diameter larger than 100 meters have a rotation period less than 2.2 hours. For asteroids rotating faster than approximately this rate, the inertial force at the surface is greater than the gravitational force, so any loose surface material would be flung out. However, a solid object should be able to rotate much more rapidly. This suggests that most asteroids with a diameter over 100 meters are rubble piles formed through the accumulation of debris after collisions between asteroids.


title: Asteroid

text: Asteroids become darker and redder with age due to space weathering. However evidence suggests most of the color change occurs rapidly, in the first hundred thousand years, limiting the usefulness of spectral measurement for determining the age of asteroids.


title: Asteroid

text: Except for the "big four" (Ceres, Pallas, Vesta, and Hygiea), asteroids are likely to be broadly similar in appearance, if irregular in shape. 50 km (31 mi) 253 Mathilde is a rubble pile saturated with craters with diameters the size of the asteroid's radius. Earth-based observations of 300 km (186 mi) 511 Davida, one of the largest asteroids after the big four, reveal a similarly angular profile, suggesting it is also saturated with radius-size craters. Medium-sized asteroids such as Mathilde and 243 Ida, that have been observed up close, also reveal a deep regolith covering the surface. Of the big four, Pallas and Hygiea are practically unknown. Vesta has compression fractures encircling a radius-size crater at its south pole but is otherwise a spheroid.


title: Asteroid

text: "Dawn spacecraft" revealed that Ceres has a heavily cratered surface, but with fewer large craters than expected. Models based on the formation of the current asteroid belt had suggested Ceres should possess 10 to 15 craters larger than in diameter. The largest confirmed crater on Ceres, Kerwan Basin, is across. The most likely reason for this is viscous relaxation of the crust slowly flattening out larger impacts.


title: Asteroid

text: Asteroids are classified by their characteristic emission spectra, with the majority falling into three main groups: C-type, M-type, and S-type. These were named after and are generally identified with carbonaceous (carbon-rich), metallic, and silicaceous (stony) compositions, respectively. The physical composition of asteroids is varied and in most cases poorly understood. Ceres appears to be composed of a rocky core covered by an icy mantle, where Vesta is thought to have a nickel-iron core, olivine mantle, and basaltic crust. Thought to be the largest undifferentiated asteroid, 10 Hygiea seems to have a uniformly primitive composition of carbonaceous chondrite, but it may actually be a differentiated asteroid that was globally disrupted by an impact and then reassembled. Other asteroids appear to be the remnant cores or mantles of proto-planets, high in rock and metal. Most small asteroids are believed to be piles of rubble held together loosely by gravity, although the largest are probably solid. Some asteroids have moons or are co-orbiting binaries: rubble piles, moons, binaries, and scattered asteroid families are thought to be the results of collisions that disrupted a parent asteroid, or possibly a planet.


title: Asteroid

text: In the main asteroid belt, there appear to be two primary populations of asteroid: a dark, volatile-rich population, consisting of the C-type and P-type asteroids, with albedos less that 0.10 and densities under , and a dense, volatile-poor population, consisting of the S-type and M-type asteroids, with albedos over 0.15 and densities greater than 2.7. Within these populations, larger asteroids are denser, presumably due to compression. There appears to be minimal macro-porosity (interstitial vacuum) in the score of asteroids with masses greater than .


title: Asteroid

text: Composition is calculated from three primary sources: albedo, surface spectrum, and density. The last can only be determined accurately by observing the orbits of moons the asteroid might have. So far, every asteroid with moons has turned out to be a rubble pile, a loose conglomeration of rock and metal that may be half empty space by volume. The investigated asteroids are as large as 280 km in diameter, and include 121 Hermione (268×186×183 km), and 87 Sylvia (384×262×232 km). Few asteroids are larger than 87 Sylvia, none of them have moons. The fact that such large asteroids as Sylvia may be rubble piles, presumably due to disruptive impacts, has important consequences for the formation of the Solar System: computer simulations of collisions involving solid bodies show them destroying each other as often as merging, but colliding rubble piles are more likely to merge. This means that the cores of the planets could have formed relatively quickly.


title: Asteroid

text: Scientists hypothesize that some of the first water brought to Earth was delivered by asteroid impacts after the collision that produced the Moon. In 2009, the presence of water ice was confirmed on the surface of 24 Themis using NASA's Infrared Telescope Facility. The surface of the asteroid appears completely covered in ice. As this ice layer is sublimating, it may be getting replenished by a reservoir of ice under the surface. Organic compounds were also detected on the surface. The presence of ice on 24 Themis makes the initial theory plausible.


title: Asteroid

text: In October 2013, water was detected on an extrasolar body for the first time, on an asteroid orbiting the white dwarf GD 61. On 22 January 2014, European Space Agency (ESA) scientists reported the detection, for the first definitive time, of water vapor on Ceres, the largest object in the asteroid belt. The detection was made by using the far-infrared abilities of the Herschel Space Observatory. The finding is unexpected because comets, not asteroids, are typically considered to "sprout jets and plumes". According to one of the scientists, "The lines are becoming more and more blurred between comets and asteroids."


title: Asteroid

text: Findings have shown that solar winds can react with the oxygen in the upper layer of the asteroids and create water. It has been estimated that "every cubic metre of irradiated rock could contain up to 20 litres"; study was conducted using an atom probe tomography, numbers are given for the Itokawa S-type asteroid.


title: Asteroid

text: Acfer 049, a meteorite discovered in Algeria in 1990, was shown in 2019 to have an ultraporous lithology (UPL): porous texture that could be formed by removal of ice that filled these pores, this suggests that UPL "represent fossils of primordial ice".


title: Asteroid

text: Asteroids contain traces of amino acids and other organic compounds, and some speculate that asteroid impacts may have seeded the early Earth with the chemicals necessary to initiate life, or may have even brought life itself to Earth (an event called "panspermia"). In August 2011, a report, based on NASA studies with meteorites found on Earth, was published suggesting DNA and RNA components (adenine, guanine and related organic molecules) may have been formed on asteroids and comets in outer space.


title: Asteroid

text: In November 2019, scientists reported detecting, for the first time, sugar molecules, including ribose, in meteorites, suggesting that chemical processes on asteroids can produce some fundamentally essential bio-ingredients important to life, and supporting the notion of an RNA world prior to a DNA-based origin of life on Earth, and possibly, as well, the notion of panspermia.


title: Asteroid

text: Asteroids are commonly categorized according to two criteria: the characteristics of their orbits, and features of their reflectance spectrum.


title: Asteroid

text: Many asteroids have been placed in groups and families based on their orbital characteristics. Apart from the broadest divisions, it is customary to name a group of asteroids after the first member of that group to be discovered. Groups are relatively loose dynamical associations, whereas families are tighter and result from the catastrophic break-up of a large parent asteroid sometime in the past. Families are more common and easier to identify within the main asteroid belt, but several small families have been reported among the Jupiter trojans. Main belt families were first recognized by Kiyotsugu Hirayama in 1918 and are often called Hirayama families in his honor.


title: Asteroid

text: About 30–35% of the bodies in the asteroid belt belong to dynamical families, each thought to have a common origin in a past collision between asteroids. A family has also been associated with the plutoid dwarf planet .


title: Asteroid

text: Some asteroids have unusual horseshoe orbits that are co-orbital with Earth or another planet. Examples are 3753 Cruithne and . The first instance of this type of orbital arrangement was discovered between Saturn's moons Epimetheus and Janus. Sometimes these horseshoe objects temporarily become quasi-satellites for a few decades or a few hundred years, before returning to their earlier status. Both Earth and Venus are known to have quasi-satellites.


title: Asteroid

text: Such objects, if associated with Earth or Venus or even hypothetically Mercury, are a special class of Aten asteroids. However, such objects could be associated with the outer planets as well.


title: Asteroid

text: In 1975, an asteroid taxonomic system based on color, albedo, and spectral shape was developed by Chapman, Morrison, and Zellner. These properties are thought to correspond to the composition of the asteroid's surface material. The original classification system had three categories: C-types for dark carbonaceous objects (75% of known asteroids), S-types for stony (silicaceous) objects (17% of known asteroids) and U for those that did not fit into either C or S. This classification has since been expanded to include many other asteroid types. The number of types continues to grow as more asteroids are studied.


title: Asteroid

text: The two most widely used taxonomies now used are the Tholen classification and SMASS classification. The former was proposed in 1984 by David J. Tholen, and was based on data collected from an eight-color asteroid survey performed in the 1980s. This resulted in 14 asteroid categories. In 2002, the Small Main-Belt Asteroid Spectroscopic Survey resulted in a modified version of the Tholen taxonomy with 24 different types. Both systems have three broad categories of C, S, and X asteroids, where X consists of mostly metallic asteroids, such as the M-type. There are also several smaller classes.


title: Asteroid

text: The proportion of known asteroids falling into the various spectral types does not necessarily reflect the proportion of all asteroids that are of that type; some types are easier to detect than others, biasing the totals.


title: Asteroid

text: Originally, spectral designations were based on inferences of an asteroid's composition. However, the correspondence between spectral class and composition is not always very good, and a variety of classifications are in use. This has led to significant confusion. Although asteroids of different spectral classifications are likely to be composed of different materials, there are no assurances that asteroids within the same taxonomic class are composed of the same (or similar) materials.


title: Asteroid

text: Active asteroids are objects that have asteroid-like orbits but show comet-like visual characteristics. That is, they show comae, tails, or other visual evidence of mass-loss (like a comet), but their orbit remains within Jupiter's orbit (like an asteroid). These bodies were originally designated main-belt comets (MBCs) in 2006 by astronomers David Jewitt and Henry Hsieh, but this name implies they are necessarily icy in composition like a comet and that they only exist within the main-belt, whereas the growing population of active asteroids shows that this is not always the case.


title: Asteroid

text: The first active asteroid discovered is 7968 Elst–Pizarro. It was discovered (as an asteroid) in 1979 but then was found to have a tail by Eric Elst and Guido Pizarro in 1996 and given the cometary designation 133P/Elst-Pizarro. Another notable object is 311P/PanSTARRS: observations made by the Hubble Space Telescope revealed that it had six comet-like tails. The tails are suspected to be streams of material ejected by the asteroid as a result of a rubble pile asteroid spinning fast enough to remove material from it.


title: Asteroid

text: Until the age of space travel, objects in the asteroid belt could only be observed with large telescopes, their shapes and terrain remaining a mystery. The best modern ground-based telescopes and the Earth-orbiting Hubble Space Telescope can only resolve a small amount of detail on the surfaces of the largest asteroids. Limited information about the shapes and compositions of asteroids can be inferred from their light curves (variation in brightness during rotation) and their spectral properties. Sizes can be estimated by timing the lengths of star occultations (when an asteroid passes directly in front of a star). Radar imaging can yield good information about asteroid shapes and orbital and rotational parameters, especially for near-Earth asteroids. Spacecraft flybys can provide much more data than any ground or space-based observations; sample-return missions gives insights about regolith composition.


title: Asteroid

text: As asteroids are rather small and faint objects, the data that can be obtained from ground-based observations (GBO) are limited. By means of ground-based optical telescopes the visual magnitude can be obtained; when converted into the absolute magnitude it gives a rough estimate of the asteroid's size. Light-curve measurements can also be made by GBO; when collected over a long period of time it allows an estimate of the rotational period, the pole orientation (sometimes), and a rough estimate of the asteroid's shape. Spectral data (both visible-light and near-infrared spectroscopy) gives information about the object's composition, used to classify the observed asteroids. Such observations are limited as they provide information about only the thin layer on the surface (up to several micrometers). As planetologist Patrick Michel writes:


title: Asteroid

text: Mid- to thermal-infrared observations, along with polarimetry measurements, are probably the only data that give some indication of actual physical properties. Measuring the heat flux of an asteroid at a single wavelength gives an estimate of the dimensions of the object; these measurements have lower uncertainty than measurements of the reflected sunlight in the visible-light spectral region. If the two measurements can be combined, both the effective diameter and the geometric albedo—the latter being a measure of the brightness at zero phase angle, that is, when illumination comes from directly behind the observer—can be derived. In addition, thermal measurements at two or more wavelengths, plus the brightness in the visible-light region, give information on the thermal properties. The thermal inertia, which is a measure of how fast a material heats up or cools off, of most observed asteroids is lower than the bare-rock reference value but greater than that of the lunar regolith; this observation indicates the presence of an insulating layer of granular material on their surface. Moreover, there seems to be a trend, perhaps related to the gravitational environment, that smaller objects (with lower gravity) have a small regolith layer consisting of coarse grains, while larger objects have a thicker regolith layer consisting of fine grains. However, the detailed properties of this regolith layer are poorly known from remote observations. Moreover, the relation between thermal inertia and surface roughness is not straightforward, so one needs to interpret the thermal inertia with caution.


title: Asteroid

text: Near-Earth asteroids that come into close vicinity of the planet can be studied in more details with radar; it provides information about the surface of the asteroid (for example can show the presence of craters and boulders). Such observations were conducted by the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico (305 meter dish) and Goldstone Observatory in California (70 meter dish). Radar observations can also be used for accurate determination of the orbital and rotational dynamics of observed objects.


title: Asteroid

text: Both space and ground-based observatories conducted asteroid search programs; the space-based searches are expected to detect more objects because there is no atmosphere to interfere and because they can observe larger portions of the sky. NEOWISE observed more than 100,000 asteroids of the main belt, Spitzer Space Telescope observed more than 700 near-Earth asteroids. These observations determined rough sizes of the majority of observed objects, but provided limited detail about surface properties (such as regolith depth and composition, angle of repose, cohesion, and porosity).


title: Asteroid

text: Asteroids were also studied by the Hubble Space Telescope, such as tracking the colliding asteroids in the main belt, break-up of an asteroid, observing an active asteroid with six comet-like tails, and observing asteroids that were chosen as targets of dedicated missions.


title: Asteroid

text: The internal structure of asteroids is inferred only from indirect evidence: bulk densities measured by spacecraft, the orbits of natural satellites in the case of asteroid binaries, and the drift of an asteroid's orbit due to the Yarkovsky thermal effect. A spacecraft near an asteroid is perturbed enough by the asteroid's gravity to allow an estimate of the asteroid's mass. The volume is then estimated using a model of the asteroid's shape. Mass and volume allow the derivation of the bulk density, whose uncertainty is usually dominated by the errors made on the volume estimate. The internal porosity of asteroids can be inferred by comparing their bulk density with that of their assumed meteorite analogues, dark asteroids seem to be more porous (>40%) than bright ones. The nature of this porosity is unclear.


title: Asteroid

text: The first asteroid to be photographed in close-up was 951 Gaspra in 1991, followed in 1993 by 243 Ida and its moon Dactyl, all of which were imaged by the "Galileo" probe en route to Jupiter. Other asteroids briefly visited by spacecraft en route to other destinations include 9969 Braille (by "Deep Space 1" in 1999), 5535 Annefrank (by "Stardust" in 2002), 2867 Šteins and 21 Lutetia (by the "Rosetta" probe in 2008), and 4179 Toutatis (China's lunar orbiter "Chang'e 2", which flew within in 2012).


title: Asteroid

text: The first dedicated asteroid probe was NASA's "NEAR Shoemaker", which photographed 253 Mathilde in 1997, before entering into orbit around 433 Eros, finally landing on its surface in 2001. It was the first spacecraft to successfully orbit and land on an asteroid. From September to November 2005, the Japanese "Hayabusa" probe studied 25143 Itokawa in detail and returned samples of its surface to Earth on 13 June 2010, the first asteroid sample-return mission. In 2007, NASA launched the "Dawn" spacecraft, which orbited 4 Vesta for a year, and observed the dwarf planet Ceres for three years.


title: Asteroid

text: "Hayabusa2", a probe launched by JAXA 2014, orbited its target asteroid 162173 Ryugu for more than a year and took samples that were delivered to Earth in 2020. The spacecraft is now on an extended mission and expected to arrive at a new target in 2031.


title: Asteroid

text: NASA launched the OSIRIS-REx in 2016, a sample return mission to asteroid 101955 Bennu. In 2021, the probe departed the asteroid with a sample from its surface. Sample delivery to Earth is expected on September 24, 2023. The spacecraft will continue on an extended mission, designated OSIRIS-APEX, to explore near-Earth asteroid Apophis in 2029.


title: Asteroid

text: In 2021, NASA launched Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART), a mission to test technology for defending Earth against potential hazardous objects. DART deliberately crashed into the minor-planet moon Dimorphos of the double asteroid Didymos in September 2022 to assess the potential of a spacecraft impact to deflect an asteroid from a collision course with Earth. In October, NASA declared DART a success, confirming it had shortened Dimorphos' orbital period around Didymos by about 32 minutes.


title: Asteroid

text: NASA's "Lucy", launched in 2021, would visit eight asteroids, one from the main belt and seven Jupiter trojans; it is the first mission to trojans. The main mission would start in 2027.


title: Asteroid

text: ESA's "Hera", planned for launch in 2024, will study the results of the DART impact. It will measure the size and morphology of the crater, and momentum transmitted by the impact, to determine the efficiency of the deflection produced by DART.


title: Asteroid

text: NASA's "Psyche" would be launched in 2023 or 2024 to study the large metallic asteroid of the same name.


title: Asteroid

text: JAXA's DESTINY+ is a mission for a flyby of the Geminids meteor shower parent body 3200 Phaethon, as well as various minor bodies. Its launch is planned for 2024.


title: Asteroid

text: CNSA's "Tianwen-2" is planned to launch in 2025. It will use solar electric propulsion to explore the co-orbital near-Earth asteroid 469219 Kamoʻoalewa and the active asteroid 311P/PanSTARRS. The spacecraft will collect samples of the regolith of Kamo'oalewa.


title: Asteroid

text: The concept of asteroid mining was proposed in 1970s. Matt Anderson defines successful asteroid mining as "the development of a mining program that is both financially self-sustaining and profitable to its investors". It has been suggested that asteroids might be used as a source of materials that may be rare or exhausted on Earth, or materials for constructing space habitats. Materials that are heavy and expensive to launch from Earth may someday be mined from asteroids and used for space manufacturing and construction.


title: Asteroid

text: As resource depletion on Earth becomes more real, the idea of extracting valuable elements from asteroids and returning these to Earth for profit, or using space-based resources to build solar-power satellites and space habitats, becomes more attractive. Hypothetically, water processed from ice could refuel orbiting propellant depots.


title: Asteroid

text: From the astrobiological perspective, asteroid prospecting could provide scientific data for the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI). Some astrophysicists have suggested that if advanced extraterrestrial civilizations employed asteroid mining long ago, the hallmarks of these activities might be detectable.


title: Asteroid

text: Mining Ceres is also considered a possibility. As the largest body in the asteroid belt, Ceres could become the main base and transport hub for future asteroid mining infrastructure, allowing mineral resources to be transported to Mars, the Moon, and Earth. Because of its small escape velocity combined with large amounts of water ice, it also could serve as a source of water, fuel, and oxygen for ships going through and beyond the asteroid belt. Transportation from Mars or the Moon to Ceres would be even more energy-efficient than transportation from Earth to the Moon.


title: Asteroid

text: There is increasing interest in identifying asteroids whose orbits cross Earth's, and that could, given enough time, collide with Earth. The three most important groups of near-Earth asteroids are the Apollos, Amors, and Atens.


title: Asteroid

text: The near-Earth asteroid 433 Eros had been discovered as long ago as 1898, and the 1930s brought a flurry of similar objects. In order of discovery, these were: 1221 Amor, 1862 Apollo, 2101 Adonis, and finally 69230 Hermes, which approached within 0.005 AU of Earth in 1937. Astronomers began to realize the possibilities of Earth impact.


title: Asteroid

text: Two events in later decades increased the alarm: the increasing acceptance of the Alvarez hypothesis that an impact event resulted in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction, and the 1994 observation of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 crashing into Jupiter. The U.S. military also declassified the information that its military satellites, built to detect nuclear explosions, had detected hundreds of upper-atmosphere impacts by objects ranging from one to ten meters across.


title: Asteroid

text: All of these considerations helped spur the launch of highly efficient surveys, consisting of charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras and computers directly connected to telescopes. , it was estimated that 89% to 96% of near-Earth asteroids one kilometer or larger in diameter had been discovered. A list of teams using such systems includes:


title: Asteroid

text: , the LINEAR system alone had discovered 147,132 asteroids. Among the surveys, 19,266 near-Earth asteroids have been discovered including almost 900 more than in diameter.


title: Asteroid

text: In April 2018, the B612 Foundation reported "It is 100 percent certain we'll be hit [by a devastating asteroid], but we're not 100 percent sure when." In June 2018, the US National Science and Technology Council warned that America is unprepared for an asteroid impact event, and has developed and released the ""National Near-Earth Object Preparedness Strategy Action Plan"" to better prepare. According to expert testimony in the United States Congress in 2013, NASA would require at least five years of preparation before a mission to intercept an asteroid could be launched.


title: Asteroid

text: The United Nations declared 30 June as International Asteroid Day to educate the public about asteroids. The date of International Asteroid Day commemorates the anniversary of the Tunguska asteroid impact over Siberia, on 30 June 1908.


title: Asteroid

text: The Chicxulub crater is an impact crater buried underneath the Yucatán Peninsula in Mexico. Its center is offshore near the communities of Chicxulub Puerto and Chicxulub Pueblo, after which the crater is named. It was formed when a large asteroid, about in diameter, struck the Earth. The crater is estimated to be in diameter and in depth. It is one of the largest confirmed impact structures on Earth, and the only one whose peak ring is intact and directly accessible for scientific research.


title: Asteroid

text: In the late 1970s, geologist Walter Alvarez and his father, Nobel Prize–winning scientist Luis Walter Alvarez, put forth their theory that the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction was caused by an impact event. The main evidence of such an impact was contained in a thin layer of clay present in the K–Pg boundary in Gubbio, Italy. The Alvarezes and colleagues reported that it contained an abnormally high concentration of iridium, a chemical element rare on earth but common in asteroids. Iridium levels in this layer were as much as 160 times above the background level. It was hypothesized that the iridium was spread into the atmosphere when the impactor was vaporized and settled across the Earth's surface among other material thrown up by the impact, producing the layer of iridium-enriched clay. At the time, consensus was not settled on what caused the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction and the boundary layer, with theories including a nearby supernova, climate change, or a geomagnetic reversal. The Alvarezes' impact hypothesis was rejected by many paleontologists, who believed that the lack of fossils found close to the K–Pg boundary—the "three-meter problem"—suggested a more gradual die-off of fossil species.


title: Asteroid

text: There is broad consensus that the Chicxulub impactor was an asteroid with a carbonaceous chondrite composition, rather than a comet. The impactor was around in diameter—large enough that, if set at sea level, it would have reached taller than Mount Everest.


title: Asteroid

text: Various collision avoidance techniques have different trade-offs with respect to metrics such as overall performance, cost, failure risks, operations, and technology readiness. There are various methods for changing the course of an asteroid/comet. These can be differentiated by various types of attributes such as the type of mitigation (deflection or fragmentation), energy source (kinetic, electromagnetic, gravitational, solar/thermal, or nuclear), and approach strategy (interception, rendezvous, or remote station).


title: Asteroid

text: Strategies fall into two basic sets: fragmentation and delay. Fragmentation concentrates on rendering the impactor harmless by fragmenting it and scattering the fragments so that they miss the Earth or are small enough to burn up in the atmosphere. Delay exploits the fact that both the Earth and the impactor are in orbit. An impact occurs when both reach the same point in space at the same time, or more correctly when some point on Earth's surface intersects the impactor's orbit when the impactor arrives. Since the Earth is approximately 12,750 km in diameter and moves at approx. 30 km per second in its orbit, it travels a distance of one planetary diameter in about 425 seconds, or slightly over seven minutes. Delaying, or advancing the impactor's arrival by times of this magnitude can, depending on the exact geometry of the impact, cause it to miss the Earth.


title: Asteroid

text: "Project Icarus" was one of the first projects designed in 1967 as a contingency plan in case of collision with 1566 Icarus. The plan relied on the new Saturn V rocket, which did not make its first flight until after the report had been completed. Six Saturn V rockets would be used, each launched at variable intervals from months to hours away from impact. Each rocket was to be fitted with a single 100-megaton nuclear warhead as well as a modified Apollo Service Module and uncrewed Apollo Command Module for guidance to the target. The warheads would be detonated 30 meters from the surface, deflecting or partially destroying the asteroid. Depending on the subsequent impacts on the course or the destruction of the asteroid, later missions would be modified or cancelled as needed. The "last-ditch" launch of the sixth rocket would be 18 hours prior to impact.


title: Asteroid

text: Asteroids and the asteroid belt are a staple of science fiction stories. Asteroids play several potential roles in science fiction: as places human beings might colonize, resources for extracting minerals, hazards encountered by spacecraft traveling between two other points, and as a threat to life on Earth or other inhabited planets, dwarf planets, and natural satellites by potential impact.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Thomas Wolsey ( – 29 November 1530) was an English statesman and Catholic bishop. When Henry VIII became King of England in 1509, Wolsey became the king's almoner. Wolsey's affairs prospered and by 1514 he had become the controlling figure in virtually all matters of state. He also held important ecclesiastical appointments. These included the Archbishopric of York—the second most important role in the English church—and that of papal legate. His appointment as a cardinal by Pope Leo X in 1515 gave him precedence over all other English clergy.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: The highest political position Wolsey attained was Lord Chancellor, the king's chief adviser (formally, as his successor and disciple Thomas Cromwell was not). In that position, he enjoyed great freedom and was often depicted as an "alter rex" ("other king"). After failing to negotiate an annulment of Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Wolsey fell out of favour and was stripped of his government titles. He retreated to York to fulfil his ecclesiastical duties as archbishop, a position he nominally held but had neglected during his years in government. He was recalled to London to answer to charges of treason—charges Henry commonly used against ministers who fell out of his favour—but died on the way from natural causes.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Thomas Wolsey was born about 1473, the son of Robert Wolsey of Ipswich and his wife, Joan Daundy. Widespread traditions identify his father as a butcher; his modest origin became a topic of criticism later, when he amassed wealth and power that critics thought more befitting a member of the high nobility. Wolsey attended Ipswich School and Magdalen College School before studying theology at Magdalen College, Oxford.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: On 10 March 1498, he was ordained as a priest in Marlborough, Wiltshire, and remained in Oxford, first as the Master of Magdalen College School, and soon the dean of divinity. From 1500 to 1509, Wolsey held a living as rector of St Mary's church, Limington, in Somerset.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: In 1502, he became a chaplain to Henry Deane, archbishop of Canterbury, who died the following year. He was then taken into the household of Sir Richard Nanfan, who made Wolsey executor of his estate. After Nanfan's death in 1507, Wolsey entered the service of King Henry VII.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Wolsey benefited from Henry VII's introduction of measures to curb the power of the nobility; the king was willing to favour those from more humble backgrounds. Henry VII appointed Wolsey royal chaplain. In this position Wolsey served as secretary to Richard Foxe, who recognised Wolsey's ability, dedication, industry and willingness to take on tedious tasks. Wolsey's remarkable rise to power from humble origins attests to his intelligence, administrative ability, industriousness, ambition, and rapport with the king. In April 1508, Wolsey was sent to Scotland to discuss with King James IV rumours of the renewal of the Auld Alliance.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Wolsey's rise coincided with the accession in April 1509 of Henry VIII, whose character, policies and attitude to diplomacy differed significantly from his father's. In 1509 Henry appointed Wolsey to the post of almoner, a position that gave him a seat on the Privy Council and an opportunity to attain greater prominence and establish personal rapport with the king. A factor in Wolsey's rise was the young Henry VIII's relative lack of interest in the details of government during his early years.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: The primary counsellors Henry VIII inherited from his father were Richard Foxe ( 1448–1528, Bishop of Winchester 1501–1528) and William Warham ( 1450–1532, Archbishop of Canterbury 1503–1532). They were cautious and conservative, advising the king to act as a careful administrator like his father. Henry soon appointed to his Privy Council men more sympathetic to his own views and inclinations. Until 1511, Wolsey was adamantly antiwar, but when the king expressed his enthusiasm for an invasion of France, Wolsey adapted his views to the king's and gave persuasive speeches to the Privy Council in favour of war. Warham and Foxe, who did not share the king's enthusiasm for the French war, fell from power (1515/1516), and Wolsey took over as the king's most trusted advisor and administrator. When Warham resigned as Lord Chancellor in 1515, probably under pressure from Wolsey, Henry appointed Wolsey in his place.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Wolsey made careful moves to destroy or neutralise other courtiers' influence. He helped cause the fall of Edward Stafford, 3rd Duke of Buckingham in 1521, and in 1527 he prosecuted Henry's close friend William Compton and Henry's ex-mistress Anne Stafford, Countess of Huntingdon, for adultery. In the case of Charles Brandon, 1st Duke of Suffolk, Wolsey adopted a different strategy, attempting to win Suffolk's favour by his actions after the duke secretly married Henry's sister Mary Tudor, Dowager Queen of France, much to the king's displeasure. Wolsey advised the king not to execute the newlyweds but to embrace them; whether this was out of care for the couple or because of the threat they posed to his own safety remains unclear. The bride, both as sister to Henry and as Dowager Queen of France, had high royal status that could have threatened Wolsey had she so chosen.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Wolsey's rise to a position of great secular power paralleled his increasing status in the church. He became a canon of Windsor in 1511. In 1514 he was made Bishop of Lincoln and then Archbishop of York in the same year. Pope Leo X made him a cardinal in 1515, with the titular church of St Cecilia in Trastevere. Following the success of the English campaign in France and the peace negotiations that followed, Wolsey's ecclesiastical career advanced further: in 1523 he became Bishop of Durham, a post with wide political powers, and thus became known as Prince-Bishop of Durham.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: The Anglo-French War (1512–14) gave Wolsey a significant opportunity to demonstrate his talents in foreign policy. A convenient justification for going to war came in 1511 in the form of a plea for help from Pope Julius II, who was beginning to feel threatened by France. England formed an alliance with Julius, King Ferdinand V of Spain, and Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor against King Louis XII of France.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: The first English campaign against France proved unsuccessful, partly due to the unreliability of the alliance with Ferdinand. Henry learned from the mistakes of the campaign and in 1513, still with papal support, launched a joint attack on France with Maximilian, successfully capturing two French cities and causing the French to retreat. Wolsey's ability to keep a large number of troops supplied and equipped for the duration of the war proved a major factor in the English success. He also had a key role in negotiating the Anglo-French treaty of 7 August 1514, which secured a temporary peace between the two nations. Under this treaty, Louis XII would marry Henry's young sister, Mary. In addition England was able to keep the captured city of Tournai and secure an increase in the annual pension France paid.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Meanwhile, a turnover of rulers in Europe threatened to diminish England's influence. With Henry's sister, Mary, married to Louis XII on 9 October 1514, an alliance was formed, but Louis was not in good health. Less than three months later, he died and was succeeded by the young and ambitious Francis I.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Queen Mary had allegedly secured a promise from Henry that if Louis died, she could marry whomever she pleased. Following Louis's death, she secretly married Suffolk, with Francis I's assistance, which prevented another marriage alliance. As Mary was the only princess Henry could use to secure marriage alliances, this was a bitter blow. Wolsey then proposed an alliance with Spain and the Holy Roman Empire against France.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: The 1516 death of Ferdinand II of Aragon, Henry VIII's father-in-law and England's closest ally, was a further blow. Ferdinand was succeeded by Charles V, who immediately proposed peace with France. After Maximilian I's death in 1519, Charles was elected in his stead; thus Charles ruled a substantial portion of Europe and English influence became limited on the continent.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: But Wolsey managed to assert English influence by other means. In 1517, Pope Leo X sought peace in Europe to form a crusade against the Ottoman Empire. In 1518 Wolsey was made Papal Legate in England, enabling him to realise Leo's desire for peace by organising the Treaty of London. The treaty showed Wolsey as the arbiter of Europe, organising a massive peace summit involving 20 nations. This put England at the forefront of European diplomacy and drew her out of isolation, making her a desirable ally. This is well illustrated by the Anglo-French treaty signed two days afterwards. It was partly this peace treaty that caused conflict between France and Spain. In 1519, when Charles V ascended to the throne of the Holy Roman Emperor, King Francis I of France was infuriated. He had invested enormous sums in bribing the electorate to elect him emperor, and thus used the Treaty of London as a justification for the Habsburg-Valois conflict. Wolsey appeared to act as mediator between the two powers, both of which were vying for England's support.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Another of Wolsey's diplomatic triumphs was the Field of the Cloth of Gold in 1520. Wolsey organised much of this grandiose meeting between Francis I and Henry VIII, accompanied by 5,000 followers and involving court activities more than military discussion. Though it seemed to open the door to peaceful negotiations with France if the king wished, it was also a chance for a lavish display of English wealth and power before the rest of Europe, through flamboyant celebrations and events such as jousting, with the two kings competing, though not against each other. With France and Spain vying for England's allegiance, Wolsey could choose the ally that better suited his policies. Wolsey chose Charles mainly because England's economy would suffer from the loss of the lucrative cloth trade industry between England and the Netherlands had France been chosen instead.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Under Wolsey's guidance, Europe's chief nations sought to outlaw war among Christian nations. Garrett Mattingly, who has studied the causes of wars in that era, found that treaties of non-aggression such as this one could never be stronger than their sponsors' armies. When those forces were about equal, the treaties typically widened the conflict. That is, diplomacy could sometimes postpone war, but could not prevent wars based on irreconcilable interests and ambitions. What was lacking, Mattingly concludes, was a neutral power whose judgements were generally accepted either by impartial justice or by overwhelming force.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: The Treaty of London is often regarded as Wolsey's finest moment, but it was abandoned within a year. Wolsey developed links with Charles in 1520 at the Field of the Cloth of Gold. At the Calais Conference Wolsey signed the Secret Treaty of Bruges (1521) with Charles V, stating that England would join Spain in a war against France if France refused to sign the peace treaty and ignored the Anglo-French treaty of 1518. Wolsey's relationship with Rome was also ambivalent. Despite his links to the papacy, Wolsey was strictly Henry's servant. Though the Treaty of London was an elaboration on Pope Leo's ambitions for European peace, it was seen in Rome as a vain attempt by England to assert her influence over Europe and steal some papal thunder. Furthermore, Wolsey's peace initiatives prevented a crusade to the Holy Land, which was the catalyst for the Pope's desire for European peace.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Cardinal Lorenzo Campeggio, who represented the Pope at the Treaty of London, was kept waiting for many months in Calais before being allowed to cross the Channel and join the festivities in London in what may have been a display by Wolsey of his independence of Rome. An alternative hypothesis is that Campeggio was kept waiting until Wolsey received his legacy, thus asserting Wolsey's attachment to Rome.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Though the English gain from the wars of 1522–23 was minimal, their contribution certainly aided Charles V in his defeat of the French, particularly in 1525 at the Battle of Pavia, where Charles's army captured Francis I. Henry then felt there was a realistic opportunity for him to seize the French crown, to which the kings of England had long laid claim. Parliament, however, refused to raise taxes. This led Wolsey to devise the Amicable Grant, which was met with even more hostility, and ultimately led to his downfall. In 1525, after Charles V had abandoned England as an ally, Wolsey began to negotiate with France, and the Treaty of the More was signed, during Francis I's captivity, with the Regent of France—his mother, Louise of Savoy.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: The closeness between England and Rome can be seen in the formulation of the League of Cognac in 1526. Though England was not part of it, the League was organised in part by Wolsey with papal support. Wolsey's plan was that the League of Cognac, an alliance between France and some Italian states, would challenge Charles's League of Cambrai. This was both a gesture of allegiance to Rome and an answer to growing concerns about Charles's dominance over Europe.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: The final blow to this policy came in 1529, when the French made peace with Charles. Meanwhile, the French also continued to honour the "Auld Alliance" with Scotland, stirring up hostility on England's border. With peace between France and the Emperor, there was no-one to free the Pope from Charles, who had effectively held Pope Clement VII captive since the Sack of Rome (1527). There was thus little hope of securing Henry VIII an annulment from his marriage to Charles's aunt Catherine of Aragon. Since 1527, Wolsey's desire to secure an annulment for his master had dictated his foreign policy, and by 1529 none of his endeavours had succeeded.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Henry's marriage to Catherine of Aragon had produced no sons who survived infancy; the Wars of the Roses were still within living memory, leading to the fear of a power struggle after Henry's death. Henry felt the people would accept only a male sovereign, not his daughter Mary. He believed God had cursed him for the sin of marrying the widow of his elder brother, and that the papal dispensation for that marriage was invalid because it was based upon the claim that Catherine was still a virgin after her first husband's death. Henry argued that Catherine's claim was not credible, and thus the dispensation must be withdrawn and the marriage annulled. His motivation has been attributed to his determination to have a son and heir, and to his desire for Anne Boleyn, one of his wife's maids-of-honour. Catherine had no further pregnancies after 1519; Henry began annulment proceedings in 1527.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Catherine, however, maintained that she had been a virgin when she married Henry. Because she opposed annulment and a return to her previous status as Dowager Princess of Wales, the annulment request became a matter of international diplomacy, with Catherine's nephew Charles V pressuring Clement not to annul the marriage. Clement faced a dilemma: he would anger either Charles or Henry. He delayed his decision as long as possible, infuriating Henry and Anne Boleyn, who began to doubt Wolsey's loyalty to the Crown over the Church.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Wolsey appealed to Clement for an annulment on three fronts. First, he tried to convince the Pope that the dispensation was void as the marriage clearly disobeyed instructions in the book of Leviticus. Second, Wolsey objected to the dispensation on technical grounds, claiming it was incorrectly worded. (Shortly afterwards, a correctly worded version was found in Spain.) Third, Wolsey wanted Clement to let the final decision be made in England, which, as papal legate, he would supervise.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: In 1528 Clement decided to allow two papal legates to decide the outcome in England: Wolsey and Campeggio. Wolsey was confident of the decision, but Campeggio took a long time to arrive, and when he finally did, he delayed proceedings so much that the case had to be suspended in July 1529, effectively sealing Wolsey's fate.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: During his 14 years as chancellor, Wolsey had more power than any other Crown servant in English history. This led to his being hated by much of the nobility, who thought they should have the power. The king protected him from being attacked. Sara Nair James, a professor at Mary Baldwin College, says that in 1515–1529 Wolsey "would be the most powerful man in England except, possibly, for the king". As long as he was in the king's favour, Wolsey had great freedom in domestic matters, and had his hand in nearly every aspect of them. For much of the time, Henry VIII had complete confidence in him, and as Henry's interests inclined more towards foreign policy, he was willing to give Wolsey free rein in reforming the management of domestic affairs, for which Wolsey had grand plans. Historian John Guy explains Wolsey's methods:


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Operating with the king's firm support, and with special powers over the church given by the Pope as legate, Wolsey dominated civic affairs, administration, the law, the church, and foreign policy. He was amazingly energetic and far-reaching. He built a great fortune for himself and was a major benefactor of arts, humanities and education. He projected numerous reforms, with some success in areas such as finance, taxation, educational provision and justice. From the king's perspective, his greatest failure was an inability to get a divorce when Henry wanted a new wife to give him a son who would be the undisputed heir to the throne. Historians agree that Wolsey was a man dogged by other men's failures and his own ambition. In the end, abandoned by the king, Wolsey was charged with treason, but died of natural causes before he could be beheaded.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Wolsey made changes to the taxation system, devising, with treasurer of the Chamber John Heron, the "Subsidy". This form of tax was based upon accurate valuations of the taxpayer's wealth, where one shilling was taken per pound from the income. The old fixed tax of 15ths and 10ths meant that those who earned very little had to pay almost as much as the wealthy. With the new income tax the poorer members of society paid much less. This more progressive form of taxation enabled Wolsey to raise enough money for the king's foreign expeditions, bringing in over £300,000. He also raised considerable capital through other means, such as "benevolences", and enforced loans from the nobility, which yielded £200,000 in 1522. Ultimately, Wolsey's fiscal policy became increasingly disliked- his forced loans and benevolences culminated in the Amicable Grant (1526). This was met with hostility as the Amicable Grant provoked 'full-scale revolt in Suffolk... the most serious rebellion since 1497' (Cornish rebellion).


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: As a legal administrator, Wolsey reinvented the equity court, where the verdict was decided by the judge on the principle of "fairness". As an alternative to the Common Law courts, Wolsey re-established the position of the prerogative courts of the Star Chamber and the Court of Chancery. The system in both courts concentrated on simple, inexpensive cases, and promised impartial justice. He also established the Court of Requests (although this court was only given this name later on) for the poor, where no fees were required. Wolsey's legal reforms were popular, and overflow courts were required to attend to all the cases. Many powerful men who had felt invincible under the law found themselves convicted; for example, in 1515, the Earl of Northumberland was sent to Fleet Prison and in 1516 Lord Abergavenny was accused of illegal retaining.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Wolsey also used his courts to tackle national controversies, such as the pressing issue of enclosures. The countryside had been thrown into discord by the entrepreneurial actions of landlords enclosing areas of land and converting from arable farming to pastoral farming, requiring fewer workers. The Tudors valued stability, and the resulting mass urban migration represented a serious crisis. Wolsey conducted national enquiries into enclosures in 1517, 1518 and 1527. In the course of his administration, he used the court of Chancery to prosecute 264 landowners, including peers, bishops, knights, religious heads, and Oxford colleges. Enclosures were seen as directly linked to rural unemployment and depopulation, vagrancy, food shortages and, accordingly, inflation. This pattern repeated in many of Wolsey's other initiatives, particularly his quest to abolish enclosure. Despite spending significant time and effort investigating the state of the countryside and prosecuting numerous offenders, Wolsey freely surrendered his policy during the parliament of 1523 to ensure that Parliament passed his proposed taxes for Henry's war in France. Enclosures remained a problem for many years.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Wolsey used the Star Chamber to enforce his 1518 policy of "Just Price", which attempted to regulate the price of meat in London and other major cities. Those found to be charging too much were prosecuted by the Chamber. After the bad harvest of 1527, Wolsey bought up surplus grain and sold it off cheaply to the needy. This greatly eased disorder and became common practice after a disappointing harvest.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: In 1524 and 1527 Wolsey used his powers as papal legate to dissolve 30 decayed monasteries where monastic life had virtually ceased in practice, some in Ipswich and Oxford. He used the income to found a grammar school in Ipswich (The King's School, Ipswich) and Cardinal College in Oxford (in 1532, after Wolsey's fall, the king renamed it King Henry VIII's College; it is now known as Christ Church). In 1528 he began to limit the benefit of clergy. He also attempted, as legate, to force reform on monastic orders like the Augustinian canons.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: Wolsey's power depended on maintaining good relations with Henry. He grew increasingly suspicious of the "minions"—young, influential members of the Privy chamber—particularly after infiltrating one of his own men into the group. He attempted many times to disperse them from court, giving them jobs that took them to the Continent and far from Henry. After the Amicable Grant failed, the minions began to undermine him again. Consequently, Wolsey devised a grand plan of administrative reforms, incorporating the notorious Eltham ordinances of 1526. This reduced the members of the Privy Council from 12 to six, removing Henry's friends such as Sir William Compton and Nicholas Carew.


title: Thomas Wolsey

text: One of Wolsey's greatest impediments was his lack of popularity amongst the nobles at court and in Parliament. Their dislikes and mistrusts partly stemmed from what they saw as Wolsey's excessive demands for money in the form of the Subsidy or benevolences. They also resented the Act of Resumption of 1486, by which Henry VII had resumed possession of all lands granted by the crown since 1455. These lands had passed onto his heir, Henry VIII. Many nobles resented the rise to power of a low-born man, whilst others simply disliked that he monopolised the court and concealed information from the Privy Council.