1076 Viola /ˈvaɪ.ələ/,^[16] provisional designation 1926 TE, is a Nysian asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 22 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 5 October 1926, by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth at the Heidelberg Observatory in southwest Germany.^[17] The asteroid was named after the flowering plant Viola.^[3]

Viola is a non-family asteroid of the main belt's background population when applying the Hierarchical Clustering Method to its proper orbital elements.^[5] The asteroid has also been classified as a member of the Nysa family (405),^[4] the largest asteroid family of the main belt, consisting of stony and carbonaceous subfamilies. The family, named after 44 Nysa, is located near the Kirkwood gap (3:1 orbital resonance with Jupiter), a depleted zone that separates the central main belt.

Viola orbits the Sun in the inner asteroid belt at a distance of 2.1–2.8 AU once every 3 years and 11 months (1,422 days; semi-major axis of 2.47 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.14 and an inclination of 3° with respect to the ecliptic.^[1] The body's observation arc begins at Heidelberg in January 1951, or more than 24 years after its official discovery observation.^[17]

In the Tholen classification, Viola is a rare F-type asteroid, while in the SMASS taxonomy, it is classified as a common, carbonaceous C-type.^[1][4]

In the 1980s, a rotational lightcurve of Viola was obtained from photometric observations by American astronomer Richard Binzel. Lightcurve analysis gave a well-defined rotation period of 7.336 hours with a brightness amplitude of 0.12 magnitude (U=3).^[15] A tentative period of 14.4 hours was measured by French amateur astronomer René Roy in January 2009, but later retracted from the LCDB (U=n.a.).^[4][18]

According to the surveys carried out by the Infrared Astronomical Satellite IRAS, the Japanese Akari satellite and the NEOWISE mission of NASA's Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, Viola measures between 21.412 and 26.39 kilometers in diameter and its surface has an albedo between 0.032 and 0.0428.^{[6][7][8][9][10][11][12][13][14]}

The Collaborative Asteroid Lightcurve Link adopts the results obtained by IRAS, that is, an albedo of 0.0415 and a diameter of 22.63 kilometers based on an absolute magnitude of 12.30.^[4][11]

This minor planet was named after Viola, a genus of flowering plants within the violet family. The official naming citation was mentioned in The Names of the Minor Planets by Paul Herget in 1955 (H 102).^[3]

Due to his many discoveries, Karl Reinmuth submitted a large list of 66 newly named asteroids in the early 1930s. The list covered his discoveries with numbers between (1009) and (1200). This list also contained a sequence of 28 asteroids, starting with 1054 Forsytia, that were all named after plants, in particular flowering plants (also see list of minor planets named after animals and plants).^[19]

• Asteroid Lightcurve Database (LCDB), query form (info Archived 16 December 2017 at the Wayback Machine)
• Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, Google books
• Asteroids and comets rotation curves, CdR – Observatoire de Genève, Raoul Behrend
• Discovery Circumstances: Numbered Minor Planets (1)-(5000) – Minor Planet Center
• 1076 Viola at AstDyS-2, Asteroids—Dynamic Site
  • Ephemeris · Observation prediction · Orbital info · Proper elements · Observational info
• 1076 Viola at the JPL Small-Body Database
  • Close approach · Discovery · Ephemeris · Orbit viewer · Orbit parameters · Physical parameters