44 Nysa

44 Nysa is an asteroid located in the inner region of the main asteroid belt. It is the largest, brightest, and first confirmed E-type asteroid, a rare type of asteroid with a highly reflective surface rich in enstatite. It was discovered by Hermann Goldschmidt in Paris, France on 27 May 1857 and was named after the nymph who raised the god Dionysus in Greek mythology. Nysa has one small moon which was discovered in 2026 and has not yet been named. High-resolution imaging in 2026 revealed that Nysa has a highly concave and irregular shape, with three apparent lobes carved by several massive valleys and craters. Astronomers believe that it most likely resulted from the slow agglomeration of three asteroids—making Nysa a contact trinary. The asteroid has a uniform surface color and rotates with a period of 6.42 hours. The origin of Nysa is uncertain. It probably did not experience any destructive collision events, as it is not known to host a family of asteroids sharing similar orbits and compositions. However, some small near-Earth asteroids including 2015 TC25 and 1998 KY26 have been suspected of being escaped fragments of Nysa. The asteroid orbits the Sun in the same region as the Nysa–Polana complex, a group of overlapping asteroid families. Despite the Nysa–Polana complex's name, researchers generally do not consider it related to Nysa due to their different compositions.