LYCOS RETRIEVER 
87 Sylvia
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The asteroid, called 87 Sylvia, is one of the largest in the asteroid belt, a collection of rocky objects that orbit the sun between Mars and Jupiter. The lumpy, potato-shaped asteroid is about 280 kilometers (174 miles) wide.
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The main asteroid, named 87 Sylvia, is one of the largest known to orbit the Sun in the main asteroid belt, between Mars and Jupiter. It is potato-shaped, about 175 miles (280 kilometers) in diameter and 235 miles (380 kilometers) long. It was discovered in 1866.
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This image of 87 Sylvia, taken on August 9, 2004, with the 8.2-meter Yepun reflector, shows 87 Sylvia and its two satellites. The overexposed central blob is the primary asteroid. The two moons are to its left, with the fainter object being the newly discovered body. The image, obtained with the benefit of adaptive optics, is actually a combination of four 2-second exposures added together. The moons are 0.4 arcsecond from the primary.
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The 87 in the name 87 Sylvia refers to Sylvia's being the 87th minor planet ever discovered. It was named for Rhea Sylvia, the vestal virgin in Roman mythology who was raped by Mars and bore the twins who founded Rome. So Marchis and his colleagues named the two new-found asteroid satellites Romulus and Remus -- names that the all-powerful International Astronomical Union has officially accepted. After calculating the mass and density of Sylvia and its two moonlets, Marchis has concluded that the mother asteroid is probably nothing more than a loose pile of rocky rubble -- more than half of it empty space with a little frozen water inside and all of the rocky bits held together by its own weak gravity -- weak, perhaps, but strong enough to keep the two small satellites in well-behaved orbits running in the same prograde direction as Earth's moon circles us high overhead.
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Discovered in 1866, 87 Sylvia was named after Rhea Sylvia, a figure in Roman mythology. In the same spirit, the astronomers who discovered 87 Sylvia's moons propose naming the moons Romulus and Remus, after Rhea's two mythical sons who supposedly founded Rome.—E. Sohn
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Because 87 Sylvia was named after Rhea Sylvia, the mythical mother of the founders of Rome, Marchis proposed naming the twin moons after those founders: Romulus and Remus. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) approved the names, to be announced in its Aug. 11 circular.
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87 Sylvia