948 Jucunda (provisional designation: or ) is a background asteroid, approximately in diameter, located in the outer region of the asteroid belt. It was discovered on 3 March 1921, by astronomer Karl Reinmuth at the Heidelberg-Königstuhl State Observatory in southwest Germany. The asteroid has a longer-than average rotation period of 26.2 hours. It was named after a common German female name, unrelated to the discoverer's contemporaries, that was taken from the almanac Lahrer Hinkender Bote. Orbit and classification Jucunda is a non-family asteroid of the main belt's background population when applying the hierarchical clustering method to its proper orbital elements. It orbits the Sun in the outer asteroid belt at a distance of 2.5–3.5 AU once every 5 years and 3 months (1,928 days; semi-major axis of 3.03 AU). Its orbit has an eccentricity of 0.16 and an inclination of 9° with respect to the ecliptic. The body's observation arc begins at Heidelberg/Vienna Observatory on 10 March 1921, one week after its official discovery observation. Naming This minor planet was named "Jucunda", after a female name picked from the Lahrer Hinkender Bote, published in Lahr, southern Germany. A Hinkender Bote (lit. "limping messenger") was a very popular almanac, especially in the alemannic-speaking region from the late 17th throughout the early 20th century. The calendar section contains feast days, the dates of important fairs and astronomical ephemerides. The calendar contains a German name day analogue for the respective catholic and protestant feast-days (entry not found). The name derives from iucundus, Latin for "pleasant" or "agreeable". Reinmuth's calendar names As with 913 Otila, 994 Otthild, 997 Priska and 1144 Oda, Reinmuth selected names from this calendar due to his many asteroid discoveries that he had trouble thinking of proper names. These names are not related to the discoverer's contemporaries. Lutz Schmadel, the author of the Dictionary of Minor Planet Names learned about Reinmuth's source of inspiration from private communications with Dutch astronomer Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld, who worked as a young astronomer at Heidelberg. Physical characteristics Jucunda is an assumed carbonaceous C-type asteroid. However, most published albedos are between 0.13 and 0.19, too high to agree with a carbonaceous spectral type (see below). Rotation period In April 2011, a rotational lightcurve of Jucunda was obtained from photometric observations by Robert Stephens at the Santana Observatory and Goat Mountain Astronomical Research Station in California. Lightcurve analysis gave a rotation period of hours with a