152 Atala is a very large, dark main belt

Asteroid belt

The asteroid belt is the region of the Solar System located roughly between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter. It is occupied by numerous irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids or minor planets...

 asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

. It is a type D

D-type asteroid

D-type asteroids have a very low albedo and a featureless reddish electromagnetic spectrum. It has been suggested that they have a composition of organic rich silicates, carbon and anhydrous silicates, possibly with water ice in their interiors...

 asteroid, meaning that it is composed of carbon

Carbon

Carbon is the chemical element with symbol C and atomic number 6. As a member of group 14 on the periodic table, it is nonmetallic and tetravalent—making four electrons available to form covalent chemical bonds...

, organic

Organic compound

An organic compound is any member of a large class of gaseous, liquid, or solid chemical compounds whose molecules contain carbon. For historical reasons discussed below, a few types of carbon-containing compounds such as carbides, carbonates, simple oxides of carbon, and cyanides, as well as the...

 rich silicate

Silicate

A silicate is a compound containing a silicon bearing anion. The great majority of silicates are oxides, but hexafluorosilicate and other anions are also included. This article focuses mainly on the Si-O anions. Silicates comprise the majority of the earth's crust, as well as the other...

s and possibly water ice. It was discovered by brothers Paul Henry and Prosper Henry

Paul Henry and Prosper Henry

Paul-Pierre Henry and his brother Mathieu-Prosper Henry were French opticians and astronomers....

 on November 2, 1875, but the discovery was credited to Paul.

The asteroid is named for the eponymous heroine of the 1801 novella

Novella

A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...

 Atala

Atala (novella)

Atala is an early novella by François-René de Chateaubriand, first published on 12 germinal IX . The work, inspired by his travels in North America, had an immense impact on early Romanticism, and went through five editions in its first year...

by François-René de Chateaubriand

François-René de Chateaubriand

François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand was a French writer, politician, diplomat and historian. He is considered the founder of Romanticism in French literature.-Early life and exile:...

.

An occultation

Occultation

An occultation is an event that occurs when one object is hidden by another object that passes between it and the observer. The word is used in astronomy . It can also refer to any situation wherein an object in the foreground blocks from view an object in the background...

 of a star

Star

A star is a massive, luminous sphere of plasma held together by gravity. At the end of its lifetime, a star can also contain a proportion of degenerate matter. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun, which is the source of most of the energy on Earth...

by Atala was observed from Japan on March 11, 1994. Subsequent occultations have been observed as recently as 2006.

• Orbital simulation from JPL (Java)
• Occultation of TYC 5558-01048-1 by (152) Atala on 2006 May 7 UT
• (152) Atala occultation of TYC 6180-01003-1 on 2006 Sept 30th
• (152) Atala near opposition July 5, 2007 (2.38AU from Earth)