Baumeia is a common, stony S-type asteroid in both the SMASS-I taxonomy by Xu (1995),[5] as well as in the taxonomic classification based on MOVIS near-infrared colors from the catalog of the VISTA Hemisphere Survey conducted with the VISTA telescope at Paranal Observatory in Chile.[11]
Rotation period
In January 2019, a rotational lightcurve of Baumeia was obtained from photometric observations by European astronomers Bruno Christmann, Raoul Behrend, Anaël Wünsche, Marc Bretton, Rui Goncalves, Josep Bosch. Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined rotation period of 10.543±0.002 hours with a brightness variation of 0.11±0.01magnitude (U=3).[9]
The result confirms and refines previous observations by French amateur astronomer René Roy in February 2003, which gave a period of 10.54±0.05 hours with an amplitude of 0.04±0.02 magnitude (U=1),[9] by Jean-Gabriel Bosch at the French Collonges Observatory (178) in February 2006, which gave an identical period of 10.54±0.05 hours with an amplitude of 0.08±0.05 magnitude (U=1),[9] by James W. Brinsfield at the Via Capote Observatory (G69) in Australia in November 2008, which gave the first secured period of 10.544±0.002 hours with an amplitude of 0.18±0.02 magnitude (U=3−).[12]
Diameter and albedo
According to the surveys carried out by the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) and the Infrared Astronomical Satellite IRAS, Baumeia measures (11.719±0.660) and (13.50±1.2) kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo of (0.256±0.023) and (0.2027±0.040), respectively.[7][8] The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link derives an albedo of 0.2396 and a diameter of 13.61 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 11.5.[10] Alternative mean diameter measurements published by the WISE team include (12.408±0.071 km) and (13.45±2.95 km) with corresponding albedos of (0.2434±0.0250) and (0.30±0.19).[5][10]