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An asteroid of the Solar System's main Asteroid Belt discovered in the year 1854 and named for the Roman goddess of fruitful abundance. Pomona belongs to the class of dense rocky asteroids described as 'stony', and orbits through the belt relatively close to its inner edge. The asteroid rotates on its axis over a period of just under 9½ hours.
The shape and structure of this asteroid are still unclear. Modelling suggests that Pomona is a somewhat elongated body with an average diameter of some eighty kilometres. However, occultation observations (measurements made as the object passes in front of a background star) imply that it has a rather more complex structure than this.
These measurements showed some kind of 'gap' within the asteroid, allowing starlight to shine briefly through between two solid sections. This might imply that this object has a deformed shape with, for example, a significant depression. Alternatively, it may be that Pomona is not a single body at all, but rather a binary asteroid consisting of two objects in a close mutual orbit, or perhaps even in contact with one another.
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