5261 Eureka è un asteroide areosecante. Scoperto nel 1990, presenta un'orbita caratterizzata da un semiasse maggiore pari a 1,5236381 UA e da un'eccentricità di 0,0647531, inclinata di 20,28209° rispetto all'eclittica.
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Eureka is an exclamation used as an interjection to celebrate a discovery. It is most famously attributed to Archimedes; he reportedly uttered the word when, while bathing, he suddenly understood that the volume of an irregular object could be calculated by finding the volume of water displaced when the object was submerged in water.
After making this discovery, he is said to have leapt out of his bathtub and run through the streets of Syracuse naked. Archimedes' insight led to the solution of a problem that had been asked of him by Hiero of Syracuse, on how to assess the purity of an irregular golden crown: by dividing the object's weight by its volume, one could calculate its density, an important indicator of purity.
This story first appeared in written form in Vitruvius' books of architecture, two centuries after it supposedly took place.
Some scholars have doubted the accuracy of this tale, saying among other things that the method would have required precise measurements that would have been difficult to make at the time.

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