As minor planet discoveries are confirmed, they are given a permanent number by the IAU's Minor Planet Center (MPC), and the discoverers can then submit names for them, following the IAU's naming conventions. The list below concerns those minor planets in the specified number-range that have received names, and explains the meanings of those names.
Based on Paul Herget's The Names of the Minor Planets,[6] Schmadel also researched the unclear origin of numerous asteroids, most of which had been named prior to World War II. This article incorporates text from this source, which is in the public domain: SBDB New namings may only be added to this list below after official publication as the preannouncement of names is condemned.[7] The WGSBN publishes a comprehensive guideline for the naming rules of non-cometary small Solar System bodies.[8]
Jesse Ramsden (1735–1800) was the British designer and producer of highly accurate sextants, theodolites and other instruments. Piazzi discovered Ceres using the Ramsden vertical circle of the Palermo Observatory. The name was suggested by J. Ticha on seeing this instrument during the Asteroids 2001 conference.
Anthony Evans (born 1944) is an English amateur astronomer involved in tracking Near-Earth Asteroids. He established the "A-Team" of asteroid- and comet-tracking enthusiasts, using robotic telescopes, providing tutorials and assistance to those interested in submitting observations to the MPC.
Pietro Tacchini (1838–1905), Italian astronomer, founder of the Italian Society of Spectroscopists, the forerunner of the Societá Astronomica Italiana (Italian Astronomical Society)
Albert Scott Crossfield (1921–2006), a test pilot who was the first X-15 pilot and made a total of 14 flights. In 1953 Crossfield was the first pilot to exceed Mach 2 in the D-558-II Skyrocket. While an NACA research pilot, he made a total of 87 flights in the rocket-powered X-1 and D-558-II research aircraft
Joseph A. Walker (1921–1966), a NASA research pilot who was the second pilot to fly the X-15 and made a total of 25 flights. Three of these flights entered space and he received NASA astronaut wings posthumously in 2005.
Robert Michael White (1924–2010), an Air Force test pilot who was the third pilot to fly the X-15 and made a total of 16 flights. He was the first pilot to fly Mach 4, Mach 5 and Mach 6, and the first to fly a winged vehicle into space. White received Air Force astronaut wings for the flight.
John B. McKay (1922–1975), a NASA research pilot who was the 5th pilot to fly the X-15 and made a total of 29 flights. Before joining the X-15 program, he made 46 flights in the X-1 and D-558-II Skyrocket. In 2005 McKay received posthumous NASA astronaut wings for a flight that reached an altitude of 89900 metres.
Robert A. Rushworth (1924–1993), an Air Force test pilot who was the 6th pilot to fly the X-15 and made a total of 34 flights. One of these flights reached 86800 meters, for which Rushworth received Air Force astronaut wings.
Joe Engle (born 1932), an Air Force test pilot who was the 8th pilot to fly the X-15 and made a total of 16 flights. He received Air Force astronaut wings for a flight that took him to 85500 meters. Engle also flew the Space Shuttle, becoming the only person who reached space before being selected as an astronaut.
Milton Orville Thompson (1926–1993), a NASA research pilot who was the 9th pilot to fly the X-15 and made a total of 14 flights. He subsequently made the first flights of the M2-F1 and M2-F2 lifting bodies, which were the forerunners of the Space Shuttle.
William J. Knight (1929–2004), an Air Force test pilot who was the 10th pilot to fly the X-15 and made a total of 16 flights. These included the fastest X-15 flight, which reached Mach 6.7, and another flight to 69600 meters for which he received astronaut wings.
William H. Dana (1930–2014), a NASA research pilot who was the 11th pilot to fly the X-15 and made a total of 16 flights. These included a 1967 flight to 93500 meters and he received NASA astronaut wings in 2005. Dana made the 199th and final X-15 flight in 1968 and subsequently flew the M2-F3 and HL-10 lifting bodies.
Michael J. Adams (1930–1967), an Air Force test pilot who was the 12th pilot to fly the X-15 and made seven flights. On 1967 Nov. 15, he was killed when his X-15 broke up during reentry. The first American to die in the course of a spaceflight, Adams was awarded posthumous Air Force astronaut wings.
Kazuhiko Utsumi (born 1937), made the first identification of many of the spectral lines and determined element abundances for carbon stars. At Hiroshima University he has taught astronomy and astrophysics to more than 30~000 students.
Osamu Ajiki (born 1965), an amateur astronomer and computer programmer, contributed to the popularization of astronomy by developing a wide variety of astronomical software that is regularly used by astronomers around the world.
Beishida, the Beijing Normal University, is one of the earliest well-known Chinese universities. Founded in 1902, it is an important center for scientific research and the training of excellent teachers and other professionals.
Hugo von Hofmannsthal (1874–1929) began writing poems at the age of 16. His lyrical and dramatic work reflects Austrian impressionism and symbolism. Together with Richard Strauss and Max Reinhardt, he founded the Salzburger Festspiele. His best-known play is Jedermann.
Constantine Deliyannis (born 1959), on the faculty of Indiana University, has studied the evolution of solar-type stars through his investigations of the abundance of lithium and beryllium in star clusters. He has also made an observational verification of the roles of mixing and diffusion in the evolution of stars.
Vishnu Vardhan Reddy (born 1978), a research professor at the University of North Dakota and a visiting scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Solar System Research
Francesca DeMeo (born 1984), a postdoctoral researcher at MIT who completed her 2010 Ph.D. thesis at the Paris Observatory. An expert in spectral studies of small bodies, she extended to near-infrared wavelengths a taxonomic classification system for minor planets, known as the Bus–DeMeo taxonomy.
Fred Hoyle (1915–2001) English astronomer, known for the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and his rejection of the "Big Bang". He served as president of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1971 to 1973.
Sir Bernard Lovell (born 1913) founded Jodrell Bank Observatory, which boasts the world's first large steerable radio telescope. Lovell served as president of the Royal Astronomical Society from 1969 to 1971.
The Intel 8080 microprocessor is the ancestor of a series of microprocessor chips going from the 8086, 8088, 80286, 80386, 80486 to today's processors. Fundamental to the "PC revolution", the 8080 did much to advance astronomy at amateur and professional observatories worldwide.
Norman R. Haynes (born 1936) spent a 41-year career in the leadership of planetary exploration. He worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and served as Voyager Project Manager, Systems Division Manager, Director for Telecommunications and Mission Operations and Director for Mars Exploration.
Yurii Vasil'evich Karachkin (born 1940), physics teacher at the school attached to the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory. Yurii is the husband of astronomer Lyudmila Georgievna Karachkina, after whom 8019 Karachkina is named
Yoshimi Okudoi (born 1992) is a member of the Matsue Astronomy Club. She is an architect and has written a paper "Observation Room Features and Problems of Public Observatories in Japan".
Kunio Yasue (born 1951), director of the Science Laboratory at Okayama Seishin University, has studied mathematical physics and quantum field theory. One of his major contributions to astronomy is his work on spontaneous symmetry breaking at an early stage of the universe's evolution
Yoshikazu Kato (born 1962) is a Japanese amateur astronomer. He edits an e-mail newsletter on astronomy that is sent every week to over 4500 readers, helping to make popularize astronomical knowledge
Teruaki Kumamori (born 1949), planetarium educator of Sakai City Culture Center, Osaka, is an expert in telescope making and has made Wright-Väisälä, Dall-Kirkham, Schiefspiegler and other optics in addition to mechanical parts for them. He also takes high-resolution digital movies of the planets
Mario Carpino (born 1957), an Italian astronomer at the Brera Astronomical Observatory in Milan. From his initial studies of satellite geodesy, he acquired a taste for extreme accuracy in orbit determination, applying these skills to the study of the dynamics of solar-system bodies in projects such as LONGSTOP and SPACEGUARD. When the Spaceguard Foundation was established in Rome in 1996 he became its secretary (Src).
Alan W. Heath (born 1931) is a British planetary observer. He was director of the British Astronomical Association's Saturn section during 1964–1970 and 1976–1994. He has also served the BAA as assistant director of the Jupiter section and secretary of the Lunar section. He was awarded the BAA's Goodacre Medal in 1986
Matsue, a city located in the ancient Izumo district in western Japan. A beautiful city rich in culture, history and archeological remains, Matsue has been designated as an International Cultural Center
Lafcadio Hearn (1850–1904), Irish-Greek writer who worked as a newspaper reporter in the United States for 20 years before moving to Japan in 1890, changing his name to Yakumo Koizumi and becoming a naturalized Japanese citizen.
Sanjiro Sakabe (1923–2001), an amateur astronomer who studied under the late Issei Yamamoto. Sakabe is the founder of the Dynic Astronomical Observatory, which contributes to the spread of astronomy in the surrounding area
Longping Yuan (1930–2021), member of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, head of the National Hybrid Rice Engineering and Technical Research Center of China. As the founder of the Chinese hybrid rice research effort, he contributes greatly to great production in China and worldwide. He has won many international prizes and is honored as the "Father of Hybrid Rice" by foreign colleagues
Kobe the primary port on the Seto Inland Sea since the eighth century and one of Japan's most cosmopolitan cities, where the discoverer lived for five years during his student days. Kobe has made a remarkable recovery from the Great Hanshin earthquake in 1995. Name proposed by the discoverer and citation proposed by I. Hasegawa
Francisco Beuf (1834–1889), a French astronomer, who participated in the organization of the Argentinian Navy School and the La Plata Observatory, of which he was the first director
Gotha Observatory (Seeberg Observatory), situated upon a well-marked hill close to the town of Gotha. In the time of the duke Ernst II von Sachsen-Gotha-Altenburg (1745–1804) and the astronomer F. X. von Zach, it was an important center for astronomy. The first meeting of European astronomers took place at the Seeberg Observatory in August 1798. This naming honors the 200th anniversary of that conference, as well as the 1998 International Spring Meeting of the Astronomische Gesellschaft in Gotha, held on the occasion of this anniversary. Name endorsed by P. Brosche
Leo J. Scanlon (1903–1999) amateur astronomer, co-founder of the Amateur Astronomers Association of Pittsburgh, or AAAP. Member of the Academy of Science and Art of Pittsburgh.
Takano Choei (1804–1850) was born in Mizusawa, Iwate prefecture. He was a physician and scholar of Dutch studies (Western learning) in the late Edo period
Kuz'ma Minich Zakhar'ev Sukhorukij (Kuz'ma Minin, died 1616) was one of the organizers of the second people's volunteer corps in Nizhnij Novgorod during 1611–1612. He displayed great action and personal bravery in the battle with Polish troops near Moscow and is a favorite national hero in Russia
David Francis Mitchell (born 1962) is the "Acting Director of Planetary Science Projects" and "Director of Flight Projects" (FPD) for NASA's Lucy mission. He has also been selected as the "Director of Engineering and Technology" at Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) in 2021.
Rob R. Landis (born 1963) is a NEO Program Officer at NASA Headquarters. Rob's lifelong passion for astronomy has taken him from working part-time while in college at Abrams Planetarium, through a widely varied career on NASA missions, including HST, Cassini, Mars Exploration Rovers and the ISS
Craig Bowers (born 1958) was a meridian-telescope observer for the Perth 75 catalogue, and also monitored variable stars. He was heavily involved in the continuous Lowell/Perth telescope CCD observations of 1P/Halley, including the discovery of the jets of CN gas leading to the defining of the rotation period of the nucleus. His PhD thesis detailed the scientific history of Perth Observatory from 1960 to 1993.
Paul A. Abell (born 1965), lead scientist for small bodies in the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science Directorate at the NASA Johnson Space Center.
Andrej Andreevich Zolotov (born 1937), Russian screenwriter and art and music critic. He is the author of more than 30 documentary films about Russian musicians, composers and conductors. Name suggested by G. Sviridov and supported by the discoverer
The small Russian town of Valujki, founded in 1593 as a southern fortress of the Moscow State, is the center of the Valujki district of the Belgorod region. Located at a picturesque place near the confluence of the Valuj and Oskol rivers, it is a town of railwaymen and of workers in the food industry
Margarette Oliver Golding (1881–1939) founded the Inner Wheel movement in 1924, one of the largest women's voluntary service organizations in the world.
Jan Ruff (born 1949) is the very capable, warm-spirited and enthusiastic chief of the Office of Public Affairs for Goddard Space Center, NASA. Steve Ruff (born 1949) is an imaginative, creative and knowledgeable middle-school teacher with a wonderful dry sense of humor
Kaluga, a town in the Russian Federation and the focus of the Kalugian region, is a prominent industrial and cultural center. Founded in 1371, the town is much recorded in the history of Russia. The Tsiolkovsky Museum of Cosmonautics and one of the oldest theaters in Russia are located there
Andrej Vladimirovich Shakhov (born 1954) works in the faculty of diseases of the ear, nose and throat at the Nizhnij Novgorod State Medical Academy. His wife, Natalia Mikhailovna Shakhova (born 1957) works in the faculty of midwifery and gynecology
Martin Lee (born 1964) is a researcher based at the University of Glasgow. He is an expert on thermal and aqueous alteration of minerals in martian and chondritic meteorites and the effects of shock metamorphism on meteorite parent bodies.
Jérôme Gattacceca (born 1973) is a research scientist based in CEREGE à Aix-en-Provence, France. Jérôme is an expert on the magnetic signatures of meteorites and Moon rocks. He leads meteorite recovery missions to the Atacama desert in Chile, and is the head of the Meteoritical Society nomenclature committee.
Georg Ernst Stahl (16601734), German physician and chemist who developed the phlogiston theory of combustion, which dominated chemical thought for almost a century. Contrary to the view of his friend Friedrich Hoffmann at the University of Halle, who considered living organisms as machines to be explained by the laws of mechanics, Stahl insisted that neither mechanical nor chemical laws alone were sufficient to account for the phenomenon of life. Most likely influenced by his pietism, he insisted that life required a force for which he reserved the Latin word anima, which in turn gave rise to the theory of animism (vitalism)
Shinsuke Tsukada (born 1954), director of the Yonago City Planetarium, Tottori Prefecture, and an executive member of the San-in Society of Astronomy, the Tottori Society of Astronomy. Provider of varied and informative planetarium programs for the general public on an ongoing basis, he spends his free evenings searching for comets. Name proposed by the discoverers following a suggestion by Y. Yamada
Takashi Fukuoka (born 1948), director of the planetarium at Sanbe Shizenkan Open Field Museum, Shimane Prefecture, and president of the San-in Society of Astronomy. A hardworking and painstaking planner of astronomy events and workshops, he is particularly concerned with meeting the needs of those new to astronomy in his local area. His main research is luminosity functions of globular clusters. Name proposed by the discoverers following a suggestion by Y. Yamada
Constance B. Newman (born 1935), Smithsonian Institution undersecretary whose unwavering devotion to the principles of exemplary management and diversity has enabled the Smithsonian to flourish and the Astrophysical Observatory to thrive
Takahiro Ishii (born 1959), Japanese amateur astronomer and active owner of the Kamogawa Observatory, Chiba Prefecture. He is a strong supporter of neighborhood amateurs, and his contribution to popularizing and disseminating celestial photography techniques makes him welcome in gatherings nationwide. Name proposed by the discoverers following a suggestion by Y. Yamada
Isao Akita (born 1948), president of the comet observers network in Japan, "Hoshi no Hiroba", since 1988. He is a well-known amateur astronomer and keen observer and photographer of comets and galaxies. He is especially at home assisting in the efforts of other comet enthusiasts, both within his group and throughout the country. Name proposed by the discoverers following a suggestion by Y. Yamada
Luderic Maury (born 1984) has been an amateur astronomer, eclipse chaser and the joy and pride of his parents ever since his birth in Nice. The number of the minor planet is the sum of 3780 and 4404, the numbers of the minor planets honoring his parents, Carine and Alain Maury.
Giiti Naruke (born 1949) is the first Japanese to achieve two consecutive wins at the world championship for radio-controlled airplanes, and he is making every endeavor to bring up a future champion
Ilario Ciaurro (1889–1992), an art teacher and ceramist, but most famous as a painter. His favorite subject was Terni, his adopted town, and he loved using etchings, poems and stories to explore its innermost aspects
Masaaki Satake (born 1956), a Japanese amateur astronomer and secretary of the Kansai Astronomical Society since 1972. Active in organizing local star parties for amateur astronomers and lay persons alike, he is a part-time journalist rigorous in describing and recording astronomy-related events in his native city of Kyoto. Name proposed by the discoverers following a suggestion by Y. Yamada
Hiroshi Mizuno (born 1951), Okayama Seishin University, is a theoretician on the origin of our solar system. He developed a theory about the formation of thick atmospheres of giant planets, such as Jupiter, with intensive studies on the sudden accretion of gas onto the solid core. This mechanism is called the Mizuno process
Takeo Takagi (1909–1982) played an active part in astronomical education as one of the first planetarians in Japan. In 1939 he joined the staff of the Osaka Electric-Science Museum, famous for its 1937 installation of the first planetarium in Japan. After retiring from the museum, he opened a private planetarium
Waseda University Astronomy Association, nicknamed "Souten". Established in 1959 by Hidetaka Tojo, Souten has produced an astronaut and many astrophotographers and observers. The discoverers of this minor planet were members of Souten
Suminao Murakami (born 1935), the son and grandson of astronomers, is a representative of the Laboratory of Urban Safety Planning in Tokyo and a former professor at the Yokohama National and other Universities.
Paolo dal Pozzo Toscanelli (1397–1482) was an Italian physician, astronomer, cosmographer and mathematician. Columbus may have used his map of the world on the 1492 voyage. Toscanelli was the first to plot observations of comets on star charts, thereby supplying considerably improved information about their sky positions
Flavio Zanonato (born 1950) is a prominent businessman and civic-minded amateur astronomer in his native city of Padova. For the past 15 years he has spearheaded initiatives to restore Padova's great astronomical heritage, e.g., the great clock
Jay Melosh (born 1947), of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, has worked on the formation of impact craters on the terrestrial planets and the "giant impact" origin of the moon. His "Panspermia" idea involves the ejection by impact of spall products containing microorganisms and their transfer to other planets.
John Graham Hosty (1949–2001), was the visual discoverer of the nova HS Sge from Huddersfield, West Yorkshire, in 1977. This find, made with a simple 10×50 monocular, encouraged others to join the U.K. Nova Patrol to look for such objects. The name was suggested by G. M. Hurst and B. G. Marsden.
František Gellner (1881–1914), a Czech poet and Bohemian anarchist. His poetry depicted, sometimes in shocking ways, night life in a big city. He died in the front lines during World War I.
The Bradshaw mountains, located south of Prescott, Arizona, in the United States. This area of sparsely populated pine-covered mountains provides a dark southern sky for the Prescott Observatory. The mountains themselves were named for William D. Bradshaw, a Western adventurer and miner.
David Emerson (died 1996), lecturer in astrophysics at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh. His research interests were in the interaction of matter and radiation and star formation. He was director of studies of the first discoverer. Emerson was also an ordained lay-preacher in the Scottish Episcopal Church. He died at a relatively young age on 26 September 1996, just a few weeks after the discovery was made.
Nobeoka, a Japanese town in Miyazaki prefecture, at the mouth of the Gokase River. Although it is the site of one of the largest chemical factories in Japan, it remains rich in natural beauty. The sound of the bell at the top of the castle hill is described in a poem by Bokusui Wakayama. Name proposed by the discoverer following a suggestion by T. Sato and R. Ukishima.
Jean-Honoré Fragonard (1732–1806), a French painter and a student of Boucher. Both teacher and pupil painted the colorful world of the Rococo aristocracy. In his landscape paintings Fragonard shows the influence of the Venetian artists.
Thomas Gainsborough (1727–1788), a British portrait and landscape painter. He was strongly influenced by the Rococo style and Dutch landscape painting, and his work is characterized by luminous colors. His portraits often feature fine landscapes, and he is notable for painting not only the aristocracy of England but also its farmers.
John Constable (1776–1837), a British landscape painter. A forerunner of the Impressionists of the late nineteenth century, he is notable for his use of color. For some time he made portraits, but later he went back to landscape painting.
Paul Signac (1863–1935) worked together with Seurat to develop the technique of pointillism. For his pointillistic paintings Signac mostly chose water, ships and ports as subjects. After Seurat and Signac not many painters worked in this time-consuming method.
Henri Matisse (1869–1954), a French artist who studied at the School of Fine Arts in Paris. After traveling through Europe and the Pacific islands, he initially developed an Impressionistic style of painting. Later he became the leader of a new school, Fauvism, characterized by bold use of color and distorted forms.
Valerij Aleksandrovich Kotov (born 1943), a Solar physicist, has worked at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory for more than 30 years. In the early 1970s he pioneered the field of helioseismology, the study of the interior structure and energy sources of the sun and other stars.
George Gershwin (1898–1937), an American composer who was also an accomplished pianist. In his compositions the techniques and forms of art music are blended in varying degrees with the stylistic nuances and techniques of popular music and jazz. The name was suggested by J. Ticha and M. Tichy.
Cornell University, in Ithaca, New York, on the occasion of its hosting the "Asteroids, Comets, Meteors" conference in July 1999. Cornell was founded by Ezra Cornell in 1865. An acknowledged center for discovery, academic leadership and service, it is, in a very real sense, a world treasure. The university operates the Arecibo Observatory, the premier site for radar astronomy in the world, and it continues to play a leading role in the exploration of minor planets and comets by spacecraft. Name proposed and citation written by J. Veverka.
Rosario Brunetto (born 1980), an astronomer at the Institut d'Astrophysique Spatiale in Orsay, France, who specializes in laboratory ionization investigations of space weathering processes on minor-planet surfaces.
Joseph Masiero (born 1982), an American astronomer and former postdoctoral fellow at the JPL in California. He is a discoverer of minor planets. His 2009 Ph.D. thesis at the University of Hawaii investigated asteroid polarization. Currently he is processing and analyzing minor-planet measurements by the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer satellite.
Andrew F. Cheng (born 1951), planetary scientist at the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University. Cheng served as the project scientist on the NEAR mission to (433) Eros and has made significant contributions to a wide variety of solar-system topics, including the study of magnetospheres and investigations of minor-planet surfaces and geodesy using LIDAR techniques. Name proposed by the discoverer and B. E. Clark, and citation written by J. Veverka.
Kenneth G. McCracken (born 1933) has done pioneering work in cosmic and X ray astronomy, contributing to the understanding of solar proton events and their propagation in the heliosphere. He designed instruments for four Pioneer and two Explorer mission, and had a leading role in the development of mineral exploration technology.
Ivelina Momcheva (born 1980), a Bulgarian astronomer, is known for her research on gravitational lensing and galaxy clusters. While she has already glimpsed the 3D structure of the distant universe through her research, she still hopes to achieve her life goal of glimpsing an antlered moose in the wild.
Brian T. Carcich (born 1956), developer of innovative computer software at Cornell University. Carcich has been responsible for developing key software used to acquire remote sensing data on spacecraft missions to minor planets and comets, including NEAR, Galileo and CONTOUR. Name suggested and citation provided by J. Veverka.
Francesco Bertelli (1794–1844), an Italian astronomer at the observatory of Bologna and successor to P. Caturegli (1786–1833) as professor of astronomy at the University of Bologna. Only the first volume of his book, Elementi di Meccanica Celeste, was published at Bologna (1841) before his untimely death. He collaborated in the calculation of the Effemeridi, the annual publication initiated in 1715 by E. Manfredi (1674–1739) and that ceased with Bertelli's death in 1844.
John Z. Kiss (born 1960) co-led at NASA an international life science and plant biology project on the ISS. This led to discoveries on multiple light sensory systems in plants, which set the stage for upcoming missions addressing the use of plants in bio-regenerative life support systems for future crewed missions.
Carl Friedrich Goerdeler (1884–1945), mayor of the towns of Königsberg and Leipzig, respectively (1920–1937). Early on he opposed the fascist dictatorship. After the outbreak of World War II, he became the leading force behind a Resistance group of conservative-minded Germans, planning a coup d´état against the fascist leader through contacts with a military opposition. Goerdeler's main goal was to restore and institutionalize a state of law. In September 1944, he was condemned to death by the Volksgerichtshof.
Machu Picchu, "old peak", 2350 meters high, is the site of ancient Inca ruins about 80 km northwest of Cuzco. When he discovered the nearly intact pre-Columbian ruins, Hiram Bingham thought he had found the "lost city of the Incas", but the building style suggests it was the palace of Pachacuti Inca Yupanqui (c. 1438–1471)
Budapest-born Peter Gruber (born 1929) arrived in the U.S. in 1951 and built up a successful asset-management business. This enabled him to establish the Gruber Foundation with its principal focus of recognizing notable human achievement, including since 2000 an annual Cosmology Prize in conjunction with the IAU
Alfred Delp (1907–1945), a German theologian. Beginning in 1942, he was a member of the illegal "Kreisauer Kreis", a group of political conservatives who worked to eliminate the Nazi regime. With this group, Delp collaborated on a first draft of a Christian social order for his country. Following the 1944 attempt on the fascist leader's life, he was condemned to death and executed in February 1945.
Edinburgh, the historic city of Scotland. Long a center of learning, it became the focus of the Scottish Enlightenment in the 18th century. It is the home of the world's largest arts festival, comprising the Edinburgh International Festival and the Fringe. Edinburgh became the first UNESCO City of Literature in 2004.
An and Eefje, two young Belgian women, whose young and hopeful lives came dramatically to an end in 1996. May their memory stand for all women throughout the world who suffer from abuse.
Hiram Bingham III (1875–1956), a member of the history faculty at Yale University, went searching for the lost city of the Incas. After tremendous effort he found it---Machu Picchu---high in the Andes, not far from Cuzco, on 1911 July 24.
Toshio Fukushima (born 1954), a Japanese astronomer working mainly on general relativity, positional astronomy and celestial mechanics. He is current president of the IAU Commission 31 and served as chair of the local organizing committee for the IAU General Assembly in Kyoto in 1997. He created the current version of Japanese Ephemeris, published by the Japanese Hydrographic Department, and contributed to the introduction of general relativity into the current IAU system of time systems, reference frames and astronomical constants. He has been the director of the public relations center of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan since 1998.
Shoken M. Miyama (born 1951), Japanese astrophysicist working mainly on star and planet formation. He was the principal investigator on the observation team that first detected the protoplanetary disk around a single star using the Nobeyama radio telescope. He was the first director of the public relations center of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan and since 1996 has been the executive vice-director.
Gérard Fauré, a French amateur astronomer and member of the "Millennium Club". He performs visual estimates of minor planets with magnitude discrepancies, pushing the limiting magnitude with his C8 telescope as far as visual magnitude 16.0 (Magnitude Alert Program). In 1996 he saw his 1000th minor planet visually.
Yuichi Iga (born 1955) is a specialist in molecular graphics and medical imaging. As an amateur astronomer, he has been energetically observing Jupiter since 1971. Currently he is secretary of the Jupiter-Saturn Section of the Oriental Astronomical Association.
Yuji Hase (1964–2002), an instructor of material technology at Kumamoto technical high school, played a leading role in amateur astronomical computing and was an active founding member of Kumamoto Civil Astronomical Observatory
Kazuo Kinoshita (born 1957) is an amateur astronomer and computer programmer. He has contributed to astronomy with his comet and minor planet orbit calculation programs and observation device control programs
Miyaji Takeshi (born 1948) is an astronomer specializing in radio astronomy and VLBI. He is among the members of the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan promoting the VLBI Exploration of Radio Astrometry and VLBI Space Observatory Program plans of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science
Ryo Michico (born 1955) is a novelist and poet respected for her beautiful science fantasies. Her best-known works are Asteroid Museum (1990) and Radio-star Restaurant (1991)
Fujiwara-no-Teika (1162–1241) was a Japanese literary figure who wrote many famous short poems. In his book Meigetsuki ("Bright Moon Diary") he discussed the 1054 supernova, which had been recorded by early astronomers in the Orient
Shoko Sawada (born 1962), Japanese singer and songwriter. Since her debut in 1979, she has released 52 singles and 22 albums, ranging from touching ballads to rhythmical pop songs. Her recordings have fascinated many fans in Japan, including the discoverer of this minor planet
The Peltans, the family of discoverer Jana Tichá (née Peltanová), including her mother Marie (née Kosová) Peltanová (born 1930), her father Bohuslav Peltan (1927–1983), her brother Jiří Peltan (born 1953), her sister-in-law Adéla (born 1951) and her nephews Petr (born 1983) and Libor (born 1989).
Julie Lejeune and Mélissa Russo (both age 8), two Belgian children who were murdered tragically in 1996, symbolizing all innocent children suffering from abuse.
Frank P. Seelos IV who, as a student at Wolford College, participated in the 1998 Caltech Summer Undergraduate Research Fellow program. He assisted and carried out research with the Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking program at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and developed the software package HAVANA, which rapidly accesses images of specified objects from the extensive observational archive available. Frank is an outstanding student with a double major in physics and mathematics
Daning Zhang (born 1944), physician and vice-president of Tianjin Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) Hospital, professor of Tianjin Medical University, guest professor of Taiwan Chinese Academic College, chairman of the International TCM Kidney Diseases Conference. As the founder of the kidney diseases practice of TCM, he has won many international awards. He has written more than 60 publications on kidney disease
Wilbur N. Christiansen (born 1913), foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences and unfailing friend of Chinese astronomers. A pioneer in radio astronomy, he invented and developed a series of radio telescopes that in their time provided the highest angular resolution. These were the "grating telescope", the "grating cross" and the "rotational synthesis telescope". His textbook on radio telescopes, with Högbom, was translated into Russian and Chinese. Immediately after the discovery of the 21-cm hydrogen line in space, he confirmed this and went on to make the first map that showed we live in a spiral galaxy. He served as a vice president of the IAU and as president of URSI, and he is now an honorary president of URSI
Takashi Tsuji (born 1937), Japanese astronomer working mainly on stellar atmospheres and spectroscopy. His major interest extends from cool luminous stars such as red giants, supergiants and carbon stars to very low luminous objects, including brown dwarfs. He received the academy prize of the Japan Academy in 1984 for "Theoretical studies of the outer layers of cool stars". He served as the director of the Institute of Astronomy, Faculty of Science, University of Tokyo, during 1992–1996. He has been professor emeritus of the University of Tokyo since 1998
Oswald von Wolkenstein (?1377–1445), one of the last minstrels. We know much about his life and times from his own songs, which have been preserved. At the age of ten he became shield-bearer for a knight and traveled throughout the world as a groom, cook and singer, eventually returning to his home castle of Wolkenstein in the Grödner valley in Tirol. He was also ambassador to the emperor Sigismund and traveled to England and the Iberian peninsula in his name. Especially interesting are his financial documents, which have all been saved and show the difficult position of knights around 1400
Averroes (1126–1198) was a medieval Islamic philosopher, whose Arabian name was Ibn Roschd Abdul Walid and who studied law and medicine in Córdoba. He brought together the philosophy of Aristotle, Islam and Christianity. Both Islam and the Christian church, especially Thomas Aquinas, condemned him. Most of his publications have been translated into Latin.
Antiphanes (408–330 B.C.) was a Greek comic poet. Today 119 complete titles and about 300 fragments are known. He wrote parodies of Sophocles, Euripides and many different characters and professions.
Liese van Zee (born 1970), on the faculty of Indiana University, has investigated the links between star formation, elemental enrichment and the gas distribution and kinematics in star-forming galaxies. Her work focuses on star-formation history and evolution of dwarf galaxies, including stellar-population models
Efraim Lazarevich Akim (born 1929), deputy director at the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, is an outstanding scientist in applied celestial mechanics to the moon and planets and the determination of parameters of the solar system
Aleksandr Konstantinovich Kononovich (1850–1910) was a professor at Novorossisk University and head of the Odessa Astronomical Observatory for many years. A pioneer in astrophysics, he is known for his photometric observations of the planets, photographic observations of the Sun and research on solar prominences.
Stamatios Krimigis (born 1938), a Greek-born American physicist, head of the Space Department of the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University and a specialist in solar, interplanetary and magnetospheric physics. Krimigis has been principal investigator or coinvestigator on several space experiments, including the Low Energy Charged Particle experiments on Voyagers 1 and 2 and the Active Magnetospheric Particle Tracer Explorers. He spearheaded the establishment of NASA's Discovery program, and his department is managing NEAR, the first Discovery mission.
Josep Maria Trigo-Rodriguez (born 1970) is a Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas research scientist at the Institute of Space Studies of Catalonia.
Paul Kling, mayor of the city of Nördlingen, Germany, where the Nördlinger Ries Crater is located. He has successfully guided the prosperity and well-being of this ancient, walled Bavarian city as it has grown and developed and enters the twenty-first century.
Erik Weihenmayer (born 1968), sightless since age 13, holds the unique distinction of being the first blind mountain climber to conquer Mount Everest. His sense of adventure, courage, fortitude and perseverance have also led him to the summits of Denali, Kilimanjaro and Aconcagua.
Jozef Uyttenhove (born 1944), a Belgian (Flemish) physicist and historian of the exact sciences, who, during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, has recently retired as a professor of physics and as director of the Museum for the History of Sciences at the University of Ghent.
Mark Speckman (born 1955), American handicapped football coach at Willamette University, was born without hands. He has turned his physical handicap into positive affirmation, touching many with his uplifting story about never giving up, helping others and always doing the very best you can regardless of the circumstances.
Robert FitzRoy (1805–1865), British naval officer, hydrographer and meteorologist, captain of HMS Beagle, governor of New Zealand (1843–1848) and in 1854 established and directed what is now the British Meteorological Office.
Richard Dawkins (born 1941), British evolutionary biologist and chaired professor at Oxford University, is the author of the seminal work The Selfish Gene (1976) and other best-selling books on science and evolution. His novel concept of the ethology of genes revolutionized the study of evolution and animal behavior. He is the former husband of actress Lalla Ward.
Francisco Medina (born 1952) co-led at ESA an international life science and plant biology project on the ISS. This led to discoveries on multiple light sensory systems in plants, which set the stage for upcoming missions addressing the use of plants in bio-regenerative life support systems for future crewed missions.
George Sarton (1884–1956), Belgian-born American mathematician and author, founder of the magazines Isis and Osiris who moved to the U.S. in 1915. Author of influential books and a professor at Harvard University, he is credited with introducing the history of science as an important field of study in the U.S.
Vojtěch Šafařík (1829–1902), Czech astronomer known for his work in inorganic chemistry, Czech chemical nomenclature and textbooks, as well as for his observations of variable stars. He obtained about 20,000 observations of variable stars. This minor planet also honors the memory of his wife and co-worker Paulína Šafaříková (1836–1920), who was interested in the history and popularization of astronomy. Name suggested by J. Ticha and M. Tichy.
Philip Ralhan Bidstrup (born 1979), a Danish physicist. H obtained a doctorate from the University of Copenhagen in 2008 based on a feasibility study for detecting and observing small minor planets by a spacecraft in deep space. The name was suggested by A. C. Andersen.
Aleksandr Grigorievich Kosovichev (born 1953), solar physicist and helioseismologist, has worked at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory and at Stanford University. The naming also honors his wife, Tatiana Vladimirovna Kosovicheva, a doctor who worked in the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory's medical office
Michael J. Mumma (born 1941), a researcher at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, has identified water, methanol, methane, acetylene and ethane in the infrared spectra of comets, and his work on comets as x-ray objects has helped provide a new probe for the solar wind.
Villa Tugendhat is one of the most magnificent pieces of modern Czech architecture located in Brno. It was built by Mies van der Rohe in 1930 as a family villa of great elegance, following the idea of freely floating space. The name was suggested by J. Ticha.
The Ulmer Spatz (sparrow) is a copper statuette originally on top of the roof of the cathedral of Ulm. The legend goes that a sparrow, building its nest, showed the builders of Ulm how to move a large beam through a small entrance door
Lalla Ward (born 1951), a British actress and former wife of Richard Dawkins. Best known for her role as Romana in the long-running British sci-fi TV series Doctor Who.
Jagadish Chandra Bhattacharyya (born 1930), an Indian astronomer and director of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bangalore, participated in the discoveries of the atmosphere of Jupiter III (Ganymede) and the rings of Uranus. Also an eminent solar astronomer, he was director of the Indian Institute of Astrophysics in Bangalore and was instrumental in the completion of the Vainu Bappu telescope at Kavalur.
Masuo Tanaka (born 1955), a Japanese Infrared astronomer, is a researcher at the Institute of Astronomy, University of Tokyo. His research interests include excitation of infrared molecular hydrogen emission, ices in molecular clouds, final-stage evolution of massive stars, and mass loss from massive stars.
Meenakshi Wadhwa, known as Mini to her friends. Mini's studies of the microdistribution of trace elements in all known martian meteorites have led to a better understanding of the origin of these rocks and have contributed to the igneous history of planet Mars. Her use of extinct and long-lived radioisotopes to decipher the chronology of meteorites is bringing new insights into the formation of a variety of objects from different asteroidal bodies. As Curator of Meteorites, Minerals and Gems at the Field Museum of Natural History, she is actively involved in public education about meteorites and their parent asteroids. Citation prepared by M. S. Robinson at the request of C. S. Shoemaker
J. Dennis O'Connor (born 1942), internationally acknowledged biological scientist, provost and staunch proponent of research excellence at the Smithsonian Institution, and resolute champion of the programs of the Astrophysical Observatory
Rick Blakley (born 1949), mechanical, structural and optical engineer who has designed instrumentation for several large telescopes including the stereomicroscope used by the Shoemaker-Levy Double Cometograph
Bokusui Wakayama (1885–1928), one of the most beloved of Japanese poets. Born in a village in Miyazaki Prefecture, he graduated from the nearby Nobeoka Middle School and later from Waseda University. Fond of both travel and sake, he wrote many poems about the joys and sorrows of life and nature. After his death, his complete works were published in 13 volumes. Name proposed by the discoverer following a suggestion by R. Ukishima and T. Sato.
Johann von Lamont (1805–1879) was born in Scotland but moved to Bavaria to be educated. He became director of the Bogenhausen Observatory and Astronomer Royal of Bavaria. Initially studying positional astronomy, he later developed a network of meteorological and magnetic stations throughout Europe.
Marianne Van Lindt (born 1941) is a well-known Belgian artist of impressionistic aquarels and oil paintings. Her home in Antwerp is a place of social encounters among artists, scientists and musicians
Goven, a village in Brittany, France, is the home of the Bernardinis, who were an extraordinary host family for the discoverer during his year-long stay there. Jean-Paul Bernardini served as a navigator in the French Marine during the 1960s, frequently practising the dying art of celestial navigation
Stephen Jay Gould (1941–2002) was a biologist, geologist and historian of science at Harvard, but he may be best known for his long-running series of reflective articles in Natural History in which he has articulated his view of evolution. In 1972, working with Niles Eldredge, he developed his idea of "punctuated equilibrium".
Kenzo Kohno (born 1934), Japanese staff member of Akashi Planetarium since 1960 and its director from 1982 to 1995. He served as president of the Japan Planetarium Society from 1983 to 1984. In 1981, he was awarded the Minister's Prize by the Japanese Ministry of Education. Name proposed by the discoverer following a suggestion by T. Sato and A. Fujii.
Elmer J. Reese (born 1919), American amateur astronomer, was an important contributing observer in the early years of the Association of Lunar and Planetary Observers, serving on its volunteer staff. His hypothesis of subsurface sources to explain the South Equatorial belt disturbances at the cloud deck on Jupiter is well known
J. Michael Straczynski (born 1954), creator, executive producer, and writer of Babylon 5, an award-winning science-fiction novel for television that chronicles the story of the last of a series of space stations, the last best hope for peace in the galaxy. Straczynski has been involved in genre television for many years, editing and writing for a number of popular series. He has also published many short stories, an anthology and two fantasy/horror novels. Straczynski's primary criterion for a good science-fiction television series is that it must be good science fiction and good television. Name proposed by J. Scotti, W. Bottke and D. Durda. Citation by D. Durda.
Gerhart Hauptmann (1862–1946), a German dramatist writer and leading personality in the field of German naturalism. His work frequently depicts social problems and the ups and downs of life, often viewed from his homeland of Silesia. Beginning in 1904, he lived on Hiddensee, a small island in the Baltic Sea, where he was also buried. Hauptmann was honored with the 1912 Nobel Prize in literature.
Thomas Mann (1875–1955) and his brother Heinrich Mann (1871–1950), both prominent German writers and social critics, were born in the Hanseatic town of Lübeck. In 1930, Heinrich became director of the section "Art of Creative Writing" of the Prussian Academy of Sciences. Thomas received the 1929 Nobel Prize for literature. After emigrating in 1933, they later settled in the United States.
The Vanvinckenroyes are a well-known family of five organists in Antwerp and Limburg. The most famous of them is the composer Jef Vanvinckenroye (born 1939), a very good friend of the discoverer
Kenichi Fujimori (born 1934), an amateur astronomer who observes sunspots, faculae and prominences. A formal observer designated by the Sunspot Index Data Center, he served as director of the solar section of the Oriental Astronomical Association from 1971 to 1978. Name proposed by the discoverer following a suggestion by T. Sato and A. Fujii.
David A. Kring (born 1961) of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory is a prolific geologist and meteoriticist who has studied the mineralogy of meteorites and the structure of terrestrial impact craters, particularly the Chicxulub crater, playing an important role in determining its origin and relationship to the K-T extinction event.
Tetsuma Sakamoto (1908–), Japanese agricultural scientist and specialist in sericultural technology, has been an amateur astronomer since 1923. He has enthusiastically observed sunspots, meteors, zodiacal light, the gegenschein and artificial satellites
Peter Rembaut (1966–1997), industrial engineer at the electronic laboratory at the Royal Observatory at Uccle, who died in 1997. Of great help to the discoverer for improving the software for the Zeiss comparator-measuring device, he was esteemed by everyone at the observatory for his kindness and ability
Chiaki Tanaka [ja] (born 1953) is a Japanese astronomical photographer and writer of books and articles in astronomical magazines. His name often appears in the list of judges for stellar photographic contests in magazines.
Carlo Rubbia (born 1934), Italian physicist and 1984 Nobel Prize laureate in physics for his decisive contribution to the large project that led to the discovery of the field particles W and Z, communicators of weak interaction. His discovery has supplied a fundamental check of the unified theory of electro-weak interactions. He is the fourth Italian Nobel laureate in physics.
Ken-ichi Wakamatsu (born 1942) is a professor at Gifu University and serves as the vice-president of the Astronomical Society of Japan. He has studied the structure and dynamics of clusters of galaxies in optical and radio ranges, and he also worked on an 11-m radio telescope for e-VLBI network in Japan
Okamoto Tomizo (born 1933) joined the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory in 1954 to observe the solar corona and flare phenomenon at the Norikura Solar Observatory. After his 1994 retirement, he helped popularize astronomy as a member of the Public Information Office at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan
Giuseppe Assirelli (1950–1998), an Italian photographer, known for his exhibitions and for his many books of photographs, depicting the beauty of his land, his town, his river and his people.
Minoru Shimizu (born 1928) worked at the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory for 40 years, first with the solar-tower telescope at Mitaka (participating in several eclipse expeditions) and later as chief of the technical staff at Okayama. He also worked at Kiso, as well as at public observatories like Bisei, Rikubetsu and Gunma.
Asbolus (The "black one") from Greek mythology, was the centaur who supposedly made forecasts from the flight formations of birds. He caused the battle between the centaurs and Heracles and thus was indirectly responsible for the deaths of Pholus and Chiron.
Robert G. Strom (born 1933) studied the cratering record on the terrestrial planets and their satellites at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. He participated in both crewed and uncrewed exploration of the solar system and has searched for evidence of ancient oceans and ice sheets on Mars.
Valentin Augustus Weber (1867–1940) was a grandfather of the team leader. Born in Germany, he moved to the U.S. in 1889, where he designed and constructed stained-glass windows for cathedrals and mahogany furniture for his friends and neighbors in Brooklyn, New York.
Zhao Zhongxian (born 1941) is a leading physicist and an Academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences. He has made significant contributions to the study of high temperature superconductivity, and has won many prestigious awards, including the State Preeminent Science and Technology Award of China in 2016.
Lance Taylor (born 1956) is a science educator who teaches at high school and college in Western Australia. He is a leading member of Chiro Observatory, established and jointly operated by Australian and Japanese amateur astronomers.
Mogami River (Mogami-gawa), the longest river in the discoverer's home prefecture of Yamagata. One of the three wildest rivers in Japan, Mogamigawa has its source in Mt. Azuma, south of Yamagata. It flows north and pours into the Sea of Japan in Sakata City. Called "Mother River", it is very popular in this area.
Angrogna, an Italian village nestled in the Cottian Alps, Piedmont, where the discoverer's paternal ancestors were born and lived for at least six generations.
Andrija Mohorovičić (1857–1936), a Croatian Austro-Hungarian seismologist, researched seismic wave propagation and epicenter determination. After the 1909 earthquake in Croatia he determined the discontinuity that divides the crust of the earth and the mantle that today is called MOHO.
Tsumita Toshi-hisa (born 1924) joined the Solar Physics Division of the Tokyo Astronomical Observatory in 1950 to study and observe the sun. After retiring in 1987, he contributed to the popularization of astronomy as a member of the Public Information Office at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan.
The concatenation Zi Ran, Ke Xue, Ji Jin, or "Nature", "Science", "Fund", is derived from Guo Jia Zi Ran Ke Xue Ji Jin Wei Yuan Hui, "The National Science Foundation of China", which is celebrating its fifteenth anniversary. The Foundation provides support for the Xinglong program.
Haseda Kastumi (born 1945) is a Japanese amateur astronomer in Aichi prefecture. During 2000–2002 he discovered the four novae V463 Sct, V1178 Sco, V2540 Oph and V4743 Sgr. He has also discovered 65 new variables, including some Wolf-Rayet stars.
Pavel Popovich (1930–2009), was Soviet cosmonaut and specialist in space engineering, participated in the flights of Vostok 4, Soyuz 14 and Salyut 3. He was the first person admitted to the cosmonaut detachment in 1960 and one of the first six candidates selected for training for the first space flights.
This minor planet is being named on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the signing of the friendship agreement between Novotroitskyi Raion, the district center of the Kherson Oblast in Ukraine, and the town of Genichesk, Ukraine.
Haroun Tazieff (1914–1998), Polish-born Belgian and French geologist, volcanologist and writer, was the author of books and films about volcanoes and earthquakes. An outstanding connoisseur of volcanoes, he was one of the best popularizers of earth science.
Tamara Sergeevna Belyakina (born 1934), astrophysicist and stellar photometrist who worked at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory from 1955 to 1990. She is known for her multicolor photometric observations of symbiotic stars. She first discovered nonradial pulsations of red giants in such systems and proposed the interpretation of this phenomenon.
Bogdan Pavlovich Maslovets (born 1940), an electrical engineer at Zaporozhye Transformer Works in Ukraine, began his career at this plant in 1962 as a foreman and later become one of the leaders of the enterprise.
Vsevolod Aleksandrovich Egorov (1930–2001) was one of the founders of the modern theory of the space flight dynamics. One of the leading researchers at the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics and a professor at Moscow University, he was a pioneer in studying trajectories from the earth to the moon.
Landon and Livinia Clay, steadfast friends of science and the arts, Harvard University and the Smithsonian Institution. They are in particular enthusiastic and penetratingly knowledgeable supporters of astronomy, conservation biology and mathematics.
Michele Ferrero (1925–2015), an Italian entrepreneur, who put proceeds of his success into a foundation active in the fields of welfare, culture and art.
John T. Rayner (born 1954), an astronomer at the University of Hawaii's Institute for Astronomy and deputy director of the NASA Infrared Telescope Facility on Mauna Kea, Hawaii.
Naomi Murdoch (born 1984) completed her Ph.D. at The Open University, United Kingdom in 2012. Using microgravity flight experiments and numerical modeling, she investigated the behavior of granular material under minor-planet-like low-gravity surface conditions.
David Polishook (born 1976), Israeli astronomer and a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Tel Aviv University. He is also a discoverer of minor planets.
Benoît Carry (born 1983), a Research Fellow at the European Space Astronomy Centre, Spain. His 2009 University of Paris Ph.D. research and ongoing investigations specialize in the physical properties of minor planets as measured from high angular-resolution imaging.
The ballet-master, producer and teacher-humanist Arkadij Efimovich Obrant (1906–1974) organized and headed a children's dancing ensemble during the siege of Leningrad in 1942–1945. The first Obrant contest of choreographic art took place in St. Petersburg in March 2002.
Andrey Kiselyov (1852–1940), a Russian teacher of mathematics. For more than 50 years, pupils in Russian secondary schools learned from his textbooks. His algebra textbook was reprinted 42 times and his geometry textbook 24 times, most recently in 1980.
Alexander Held (born 1958) has worked on the use of Earth observation data to improve our understanding in landscape ecology and vegetation conditions. He led Australia's international work in Earth Observation, where he provided the necessary rationale towards the establishment of the new Australian Space Agency in 2018.
Daryl Baldwin (born 1962), whose traditional name Kinwalaniihsia means hawk in the Myaamia language, is director of the Myaamia Project at Miami University in Ohio.
Satoru Honda (1913–?), widow of Japanese astronomer Minoru Honda. She was a kindergarten principal, is the widow of Minoru Honda, famed comet and nova hunter. When light pollution affected her husband's observatory at Kurashiki she spent her retirement allowance to purchase a new mountain site. The name was suggested by K. Kenmotsu and T. Sato.
Alexander Stewart Herschel (1836–1907) was a British astronomer and professor of natural philosophy at the Universities of Glasgow and Durham, whose studies of meteoric radiant points, the point in the sky from which the paths of meteors appear to originate, was instrumental for identifying comets as the source of meteor showers. The Herschel graph was named after him.
Jean-Baptiste de Boyer (1703–1771) was a French writer and freethinker who spent 25 years at the court of Frederick II. There he wrote his 18-volume Correspondence philosophique, which helped spread the ideas of the Enlightenment.
The U.S. city of Boulder, Colorado, about 48 km northwest of Denver. Settled in 1859 by miners and named for the large stones in the area, the University of Colorado was founded there in 1876, making Boulder a center for scientific and environmental research. The water supply for the city is unique, coming from the Arapahoe glacier high in the Rocky Mountains. The discoverer and his wife spent a year there at the JILA institution during 1967–1968.
Hidekazu Kikuoka (born 1941) has been a planetarium educator at the Osaka Municipal Electric Science Museum and at the Science Museum of Osaka. He founded the Japan Astronomical Club in 1955 and served as its president during 1965–1985. The name was suggested by T. Sato and K. Kitao.
Ed (born 1931) and Pat (born 1944) Vega have been a dynamic astronomical team for many years. Drawing on his experience as a pathologist, Ed Vega has completed a study, called "Comet Disaster", of the long-term effects to humanity of a large comet's impact on the earth. JPL
Jim and Laurie Smith in recognition of their generosity and wisdom in the support of forefront tools to explore the heavens to the benefit of all of humanity. Most especially, their support was crucial for Harvard University's participation in the Magellan Project.
Burkhard Wachholz (1940–2000), a friend of the first discoverer, Lutz D. Schmadel, was longstanding senior chief mechanic and department head at the Institute of Physics, University of Heidelberg. His wealth of ideas and excellent craftmanship, as well as his readiness to help, were indispensable for countless projects.
Bauhaus, German architectural school of design founded in 1919 by the architect W. Gropius (1883–1969) in Weimar. The school's philosophy emphasized the unity of fine art and trade as the basis for artistic work. By incorporating engineering, the way was opened for industrial design. The Bauhaus moved to Dessau in 1925 and was closed by the Nazis for its "decadence" in 1932. Many Bauhaus masters emigrated to the United States. In 1937, the New Bauhaus was founded by L. Moholy-Nagy (1895–1946) in Chicago. Name proposed by the first discoverer.
Masakatsu Fujimoto (born 1948) played a leading role in constructing a laser interferometric gravitational wave detector, TAMA-300, which is the only interferometric-type detector in operation for gravitational waves emitted by a neutron-star binary or by supernovae in nearby galaxies
Patrick G. Corvan (born 1940) has links with Armagh Observatory dating back to his schooldays. He is an avid observer whose enthusiasm for astronomy is readily communicated to others. His book and slide collections, as well as stories about the astronomers who have worked at or visited Armagh, are much in demand.
Masaaki Hyakkai (born 1963) is a science teacher and president of Gunma Astronomical Society. As a volunteer lecturer at astronomical observation meetings, he works to popularize science and astronomy
Henri de Boulainvilliers (1658–1722), French historian and political writer who influenced intellectual developments in the French Enlightenment. Claiming that historical studies can supply the tools for analyzing the present state of society, he worked out a theory of comparative historical study which approached the later writings of Montesquieu. In 1683 he published his l'Idée d'un Système Général de la Nature, which anticipated Holbach's Système de la Nature (1770). His Histoire de la religion et de la philosophie ancienne was published around 1700.
Bouillabaisse, a famous French fish soup, the glory of Provençal cooking. It contains fish, shellfish, olive oil, onions, tomatoes, garlic, parsley, saffron, fennel, thyme, bay leaf and orange peel (according to the Marseille recipe). All ingredients must be boiled together quickly.
Paolo Ruffini (1765–1822) an Italian mathematician and physician. In 1799 he published a book on the theory of equations, with the claim that the solution by radicals of a general equation of degree greater of four is impossible. Initially the mathematical community showed no interest in his work. However, in 1821 his work was acknowledged by Cauchy, who was influenced by his investigations and had generalized some of Ruffini's results. Owing to political problems he had to leave his chair in mathematics at Modena and begin a career in medicine, tending to patients from the poorest to the richest.
Niels Henrik Abel (1802–1829), a Norwegian mathematician. In 1824 he proved the impossibility of solving a general equation of the fifth degree by radicals. Through his friendship with the editor Crelle, who encouraged him in his work, he wrote his masterpiece Recherches sur les fonctions elliptiques (1827), from which he could prove that Jacobi's work on elliptic integrals were consequences of his own work. It is interesting to note that neither Gauss nor Cauchy showed interest in Abel's work.
Yukou Takeuchi (born 1932), Japanese amateur astronomer, designed a quartet camera system with a rotating shutter to measure the velocity of meteors, a system that he later improved to be automatic. In 1990 he began video observation with an image intensifier
Using unparalleled techniques in electron microscopy, Japanese biophysicist Eisaku Katayama (born 1949) revealed molecular shapes of various proteins in their functional states with a resolution that can only be superseded by x-ray study. He also contributed to new techniques in astronomical photography
Akira M. Sinzi (born 1922) directed the astronomical division of the Hydrographic Department of Japan and was president of IAU Commission 4 during 1979–1982. Although his death has not been confirmed, he disappeared while mountain-climbing alone in the Kanto area in 1995. The name was suggested by A. Sengoku
According to the legend of the Ainu people of northern Japan, the members of the Korbokkur tribe were only 3 to 6 cm tall and moved so swiftly they were difficult to see. Satoru Sato began publishing Korbokkur tales in 1959. They are very popular in Japan, and not only for children
Mineo Saito (1952–2000) was the founder and an active leader of the Ohkuma Astronomical Club in Kakuda City, Miyagi prefecture. He was devoted to the popularization of astronomical activities
The Oohira station of Nihondaira Observatory, where this object was discovered, was very active in making observations of comets and minor planets from 1987 to 2000
Gösta Knutsson (1908–1973), Swedish author and radio producer who introduced quiz programs to Sweden. His children's stories about the cat Pelle Svanslös and his adventures in Uppsala have been very popular. The author of twelve books, the first in 1939, Knutsson lived not far from the locations where many of the adventures take place.
Pelle Svanslös (English: Peter No-Tail), a fictional cat that appears in Gösta Knutsson's children's stories. Some of the adventures of this cat, whose tail was bitten off by a rat when he was only a few days old, take place in the section of Uppsala where the astronomical observatory is located.
Måns, fictional cat in the stories of Gösta Knutsson. In the stories, Måns, the eternal "bad guy" is always devising new ways of ridiculing Pelle Svanslös over his nonexistent tail.
Gammel-Maja, fictional cat in the stories of Gösta Knutsson. The old and wise cat seldom fails to notice when Pelle is being treated unfairly and often takes his side in arguments. She lives in the belfry of the Uppsala cathedral.
Laban, fictional cat in the stories of Gösta Knutsson. He lived in the Observatory park in Uppsala and gave his name to one of the first modern computers at the Astronomical Observatory.
Arne Ardeberg (born 1940), Swedish professor emeritus of astronomy at Lund Observatory, was director of the European Southern Observatory at La Silla between 1979 and 1984. He played a very important role in the development of future extremely large telescopes with primary mirrors of aperture 30–50 meters.
Hiroshi Tsunemi (born 1951), Osaka University, has worked in x-ray astronomy as a chief scientist of the x-ray observing satellite ASCA. His scientific interest is focused on the structure and chemical composition of supernova remnants and related high-energy phenomena, as well as on the design of new x-ray detectors
Sigenori Miyamoto (born 1931) is one of the pioneers of x-ray astronomy in Japan. In 1958, he invented a spark chamber that has been widely used for measuring the path of charged particles. Later, he started studies on x-ray objects and discovered the short time flux variation of x-ray sources
Hazel McGee, a British amateur astronomer was meetings secretary of the British Astronomical Association from 1988 to 1993 and has been editor of the association's Journal since 1994, carrying out this task most efficiently and introducing many improvements. She is an enthusiastic observer of variable stars and of stellar occultations by minor planets.
Kunio Kenmotsu (born 1932) has been director of the Kurashiki Observatory since 1990. For many years he was an astronomer in the Hydrographic Department of the Maritime Safety Agency of Japan. He also served successively as director of its hydrographic stations in Shimosato, Kurashiki and Bisei from 1976 to 1989
Sumizi Hara (1878–1968) provided the means for establishing the Kurashiki Observatory in 1926 and for operating it thereafter. The observatory is open to the general public and was the first of its kind in Japan. Hara was awarded many prizes, including "Honorary Citizen of Kurashiki City"
Alcide Bittesini (1913–1981), father of Luciano Bittesini, one of the Farra d´Isonzo amateur astronomers who discovered this minor planet. A natural sciences high-school teacher in Italy, Alcide Bittesini kindled his then-nine-year-old son's interest in astronomy by showing him a comet, using a handmade telescope constructed from a tin can, a pair of glasses and an eyepiece from his microscope
Hesiod (c. 700 BC), an early Greek poet, told the story of Pandora, who out of curiosity opened a jar, letting loose all evils on humanity. In the epic poem Works and Days Hesiod affirms his belief in justice and his feeling for the rhythm of life and nature.
According to myth, the giant Daitarabochi built Mt. Fuji using nearby soil. The area from which he dug became Lake Biwa, the largest lake in Japan. The myth also claims that the many lakes in Japan were the footsteps of Daitarabochi
Hyoichi Kohno (born 1958), Japanese adventurer, born in Ehime prefecture, where this minor planet was discovered. Since 1980, he has boated down the Yukon River; climbed Mt. McKinley (6194 m) and Cerro Aconcagua (6959 m), the highest mountains in North and South America; walked across Patagonia; walked from Los Angeles to New York; walked from Algeria to Togo across the Sahara desert; and so on. In 1997, he became the first Japanese to walk to the North Pole alone
Bradford A. Smith (1931–2018) was an American astronomer who served as the principal investigator of the Imaging Experiment Team of the Voyager missions to the outer planets and has also contributed to many other NASA missions. He has also served as president of IAU Commission 16.
Guido Mirimao (1909–1990), internationally known painter and draftsman. A graphic artist who contributed regularly to newspapers and magazines, from 1931 to 1940 he received a great number of prizes in national exhibitions. He also created art works and murals on sacred subjects in Italy and abroad
the discoverer's father, Jaroslav Šaroun (born 1943). A teacher at the Prague Academy of Musical Arts and a member of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra, he is a pianist who is always in great demand as an accompanist for Czech and foreign singers. As a lover of astronomy, he influenced and supported his daughter in her desire to become an astronomer. This minor planet was discovered on the day after his birthday
Margherita Hack (1922–2013), Italian astrophysicist, director of the Trieste Astronomical Observatory (1964–1987), director of the astronomy department of Trieste University (1985–1991 and 1996–1997) and a former president of IAU Commission 29. Although her studies ranged from optics and solar physics to radio astronomy (galactic 21-cm emission), her main fields of research were stellar spectroscopy, stellar atmospheres and observable effects of stellar evolution. Her later interests were the ultraviolet and optical spectroscopy of close interacting binaries, atmospheric eclipsing binaries and symbiotic stars.
Takio Tsubaki (1935–1999) was a solar physicist concerned particularly with the observational study of the solar corona and prominences. He served as a dean at Shiga University, on the board of the Astronomical Society of Japan and on the Solar Physics Committee at the National Astronomical Observatory
Leonid Leonidovich Sikoruk (born 1937) is a Russian astronomy popularizer, telescope builder, astrophotographer and film director in Russia. The name was suggested by forum users on www.astronomy.ru, many of whom became amateur astronomers owing to Leonid Sikoruk.
Anomalocaris ("abnormal shrimp"), a prehistoric animal. The large carnivorous arthropod, was one of the many uniquely shaped multicellular creatures that appeared during the Cambrian explosion. The fossil was first discovered in the Burgess Shale in the Canadian Rocky Mountains. The name was suggested by I. Makino.
Lawrence (Larry) Wilson, whom discoverer E. F. Helin has known since his childhood. As the editor of the Pasadena Star News, he has been supportive of the discoverer's work at Caltech's Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Yoshiaki Taniguchi (born 1954) works mainly in extragalactic physics at Tohoku University. He promoted the first mid-infrared deep survey for dust-enshrouded young galaxies at high redshift using the Infrared Space Observatory and an optical deep survey for very-high-redshift galaxies using the Subaru Telescope
Makoto Irie (born 1939) is known for his outstanding coronal observations with the coronagraph at the Norikura Solar Observatory. He also made countless sunspot drawings at the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan during his service there from 1963 to 2001
Seishi Takeuchi (born 1961) is an amateur astronomer and a painter. He has served as a volunteer artist for the planetarium of Hiroshima Children's Museum for 20 years and has contributed to more than 70 planetarium shows
Chosei Komori (born 1935) is a planetary geologist who works as a leader of the Planetary Geological Society of Japan. He is now studying the surface geology of the terrestrial planets and the evolution of the solar system. He is also known as a popularizer of planetary science
Shoji Kato (born 1935), Japanese astrophysicist and professor emeritus of Kyoto University, has been engaged in studying theories concerning oscillations and waves in accretion disks embedded in active galactic nuclei and proto-planetary disks. He served as a member of the Japanese National Committee of the IAU during 1985–1994.
Hieizan, a Japanese mountain located to the northeast of Kyoto and to the west of Lake Biwa. Enryaku-ji Temple was constructed on the summit of Hieizan in the eighth century. It has played an important role, not only in Buddhism, but also in the history and culture of Japan.
Robert Pinsky (born 1940), poet laureate of the United States since 1997. Besides several books of poetry, Pinsky has produced a much-acclaimed new English translation of Dante's Inferno. Written in slant rhyme, Pinsky's version captures the rhythm and grandeur of the great Italian poet's masterpiece
Johnen, is a mountain in Nagano prefecture and part of the northern Japanese Alps. Popular with climbers, the 2857-m peak is especially famous because an Englishman, Walter Weston (1861–1940), climbed it in 1894 and spread the word of its beauty all over the world
Kazuhisa Mishima (born 1970), a Japanese astronomy curator at the Kurashiki Science Center, is an eager planetarium educator who spreads astronomy in an enjoyable way. He makes available predictions for viewing artificial satellites.
Johann Jakob Froberger (1616–1667), German organist and composer of his day. A pupil of Frescobaldi, he combined features of many national styles. His toccate, full of imaginative chromatic harmonies, were copied out and imitated by J. S. Bach.
Jean Vanier (1928–2019) was a Canadian Catholic philosopher, theologian, and humanitarian. As the founder of two global communities (L'Arche, Faith and Light) for people with intellectual disabilities, he presents a compelling vision of a fully human life, lived in compassionate community.
Vladimir Chelomey (1914–1984), a Russian designer of space technology, created space systems for Salyut crewed stations and various other applications.
Ivan Shuvalov (1727–1797), was a prominent Russian government figure who contributed to the development of Russian science and art and was a patron of scientists, writers and painters. He was a founder and first curator of Moscow University.
Maurice Goldhaber (1911–2011), and his brother, Gerson Goldhaber (1924–2010), two Austrian/German-born American physicist, contributed to 20th-century physics with discoveries that include charmed mesons and photodisintegration of the deuteron. They were still active members of the SuperKamiokande Collaboration and Supernova Cosmology Project at the time of naming. Name suggested by C. Pennypacker.
Philip Graham Good (born 1961) is the "Guidance, Navigation, and Control Lead" of the Lucy mission, who has also been involved in NASA'S MAVEN, MRO, Stardust and JUNO missions.
Rune Fogelquist (1924–2014), Swedish amateur astronomer, for his inspiring activities in astronomy popularization within the Mariestad Astronomy Club, located near Lake Vänern in southern Sweden, and the building and running of the nearby Bifrost Observatory, the main instrument at which is a 0.60-m reflector. The observatory has about 1000 visitors annually. The naming commemorates the twentieth anniversary of the Mariestad Astronomy Club, celebrated in August 1998. Name proposed and citation prepared by H. Rickman (Src).
Jean-Louis Fellous (born 1947) served as COSPAR Executive Director for over a decade. He was essential to COSPAR's mission to encourage and facilitate international cooperation in space research, particularly when the organization of COSPAR activities was difficult for either internal or external circumstances.
Lowell Kevin Rudolph (born 1950) is the "Spacecraft Design Lead" of the Lucy mission as well as the "Lockheed Martin Proposal Coordinator", who has also been involved in NASA'S Cassini–Huygens, JUNO, and OSIRIS-REx missions.
Jim Parsons (born 1973), an American actor who portrays the fictional Caltech theoretical physicist Dr. Sheldon Lee Cooper in the television sitcom "The Big Bang Theory".
Mayim Bialik (born 1975), an American actress and real-life neuroscientist, portrays the fictional neurobiologist Amy Farrah Fowler in the television sitcom "The Big Bang Theory".
Johnny Galecki (born 1975), an American actor who portrays the fictional Caltech physicist Dr. Leonard Hofstadter in the television sitcom "The Big Bang Theory".
Simon Helberg (born 1980), an American actor and comedian who portrays the fictional Caltech aerospace engineer Howard Wolowitz in the television sitcom "The Big Bang Theory".
Melissa Rauch (born 1980), an American actress and comedian who portrays microbiologist Bernadette Rostenkowski in the television sitcom "The Big Bang Theory".
Kunal Nayyar (born 1981), a British-born Indian actor who portrays the fictional Caltech astrophysicist Dr. Rajesh Koothrappali in the television sitcom "The Big Bang Theory".
David Saltzberg (born 1967) is a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of California, Los Angeles, and science consultant for the television sitcom "The Big Bang Theory".
Chuck Lorre (born Charles Michael Levine, 1952) is an American television writer, director, and producer. He is co-creator and executive producer of the situation comedy "The Big Bang Theory".
Bill Prady (born 1960) is an American television writer and producer. He is co-creator and executive producer of the situation comedy "The Big Bang Theory".
Sheri Klug Boonstra (born 1955) is the lead of L'SPACE, the "Lucy Student Collaboration" for the Lucy mission. She also oversees NASA's "Mars Education Program" and the "Undergraduate Student Research Program".
Fritz Neubauer (born 1940) is a pioneer in space science. His main fields are planetary magnetic fields and magnetospheres, interplanetary plasma and the interaction of the solar wind with comets. He has been principal and co-investigator on many NASA and ESA space missions. The name was suggested by M. Pätzold.
Malvina Maury (born 1985), daughter of astronomer Alain Maury who participated in the discovery of this minor planet. Malvina was born on the day of discovery, in Poway, near San Diego, while her father was working at Palomar Observatory.
Břetislav Vonšovský (1937–2019) was the chairman of South Bohemian branch of the Czech Astronomical Society. He led Tábor Observatory as an enthusiastic populizer of astronomy for 41 years. He dealt with lectures for schools and general public and was interested in stellar occultations.
Rita Schulz (born 1961), a German planetary scientist at the European Space Agency, is an expert on the physical and chemical properties of comets. She studied the structure of the CN coma of comet 1P/Halley and is currently deputy project scientist on the Rosetta mission. The name was suggested by M. A. Barucci.
Quercus, or oak trees, is a genus belonging to the family Fagaceae. The English oak (Quercus robur) reaches a height of 30–40 meters and an age of more than a thousand years.
The silver birch (Betula pendula), a plant species in the genus Betula belonging to the family Betulaceae. It is a beautiful tree with an almost white bark. It grows fast and reaches a height of about 25 meters and an age of 60–80 years.
Populus, a genus of plants including aspen and cottonwood, belongs to the family Salicaceae. Populus nigra (black poplar) is a fast-growing tree with a height of about 30 meters, whereas Populus tremula (trembling aspen) is easily recognizable by its shimmering appearance.
Salix, known as willows, is a genus belonging to the family Salicaceae. Salix alba (white willow) is a small tree with long, thin leaves. This fast-growing tree is used for windbreaks and screens. Salix caprea (goat or pussy willow) is a fast-growing small tree with striking catkins in early spring.
Acacia, a genus of shrubs, known as the wattles or acacias, belonging to the family Mimosaceae. Acacia mearnsii (mimosa) is a shrub with feathery leaves composed of many small leaflets. The strongly scented tiny yellow flowers are grouped in loose, rounded clusters.
Cupressus (cypress), belonging to the family Cupressaceae. Cupressus macrocarpa (Monterrey cypress) produces a durable wood. Cupressocyparis leylandii (Leyland cypress), hybridized from the macrocarpia, has scale-like dark green leaves that are arranged at various angles to the shoot. These trees are typical of the landscape in Tuscany.
Grigorij Richters (born 1987), a film director and producer, who has worked to increase awareness of the dangers of asteroid impacts on the Earth. In 2014 he founded Asteroid Day, a worldwide organisation centered on identifying all dangerous NEOs and developing ways to avoid an impending catastrophe.
Daun, a German city in the Eifel region, not far from the Belgian border. Well known for its volcanic lakes and healthy mineral water Dauner Sprudel, it has recently celebrated its 1000th anniversary.
Jean-Baptiste Lully (1632–1687), an Italian-French composer, created a very lively style of composition by introducing quicker dances such as the bourrée, gavotte and gigue into his ballets. A beautiful example of his music is La Marche des Combattans.
Carl Charlier (1862–1934), Swedish professor of astronomy at Uppsala during 1890–1897 and later at Lund, worked in several fields of astronomy, including celestial mechanics and photometry. He was one of the leading founders of stellar statistics, applying mathematical statistics to astronomical problems.
Tingstäde, is a parish on Gotland. In Tingstäde Träsk, a swamp that is the second largest lake on the island, the remains of a timber construction involving some 10~000 logs, probably from the sixth century, is still visible on the lake floor.
Rone, a small parish on Gotland, Sweden, is well known for the lyrics to the song Rune from Rone. Nearby Uggarde Rojr, a 3000-year-old burial mound from the Bronze Age with a diameter of 50 meters and a height of 7 meters, is one of the biggest in Sweden.
Burs is a small parish on the Swedish island of Gotland. Gustav Edman (1881–1912), well known for his height (2.46 meters) and strength, was born in Burs. Burs also has the remains of the largest house (67 × 11 meters) in Sweden from the Roman Iron Age.
Kräklingbo, is a small parish on the Swedish island of Gotland. Located here on a hill are the remains of a fortification nearly 2000 years old, the biggest in Scandinavia. From that hill many of the medieval churches on the island can be seen.
Nils Göran Sjölander (born 1951), a Swedish astronomer and formerly librarian at Uppsala Observatory, studies dwarf galaxies and has a keen interest in the history of astronomy.
Gabriel Fauré (1845–1924) was a French composer who revolutionized French music by using daring harmonic progressions and modulations. A set of highly original nocturnes, barcaroles and impromptus was composed after the example of Chopin. His Ballade (1881) for piano is very popular.
Mark Akenside (1721–1770), a British poet and physician who studied medicine at the University of Leiden. There he met the French philosopher d'Holbach, who translated his well-known philosophical essay The Pleasures of Imagination (1744) into French (1759).
The observatory at Caussols, in the French Alps-Maritimes, is situated above the northern part of a 1100-m high, open and flat plain, the Plateau de Caussols, about 10 km from the Route Napoléon.
Timothy D. Swindle (born 1955), of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, is a meteoriticist who has specialized in the study of noble gases in meteorites. Swindle has used meteorites, including the martian meteorites, to study the atmospheres of other planets and water products in the Solar System.
Kjell Olofsson (born 1955), a Swedish astronomer who studies galaxies. He is the director of undergraduate studies at the Uppsala Observatory and studies galaxies.
Lieven Gevaert (1868–1935) was a Flemish Belgian industrialist who established the L. Gevaert & Cie at Mortsel, near Antwerp, beginning in 1890 with a small shop of homemade photographical paper, which later became Agfa-Gevaert corporation. Gevaert glass plates have been used for many purposes in astronomy, especially for the astrometry of minor planets.
Tadao Nakano (born 1926), Osaka City University, proposed in 1953 the so-called Nakano-Nishijima-Gell-Man rule of the statistics of elementary particles, which became one of the foundations of the quark model. His interests also extend to general relativity and to gauge theory.
Giacomo Leopardi (1798–1837), the great poet and philosopher from the Italian Romantic period. Full of astronomical references, his poetry expresses the great sense of bewilderment of post-Copernican man, faced with an infinite variety of worlds of which he is no longer the center, but only infinitesimal and marginal. Nevertheless, the Ginestra becomes the symbol of man/flower in the middle of the cosmos/desert, a cosmos sustained by rigid mechanistic laws, indifferent to every desire and human sentiment, existing only to perpetuate the cycle of production and universal destruction. Name suggested and citation prepared by M. Vicoli.
Vesmír, a Czech monthly journal of science founded in 1871. It describes new findings from the whole spectrum of science including astronomy, biology, chemistry, cybernetics, genetics, geology, medicine and physics, as well as their interdisciplinary connections.
Takashi Ohsugi (born 1944), currently director of the Hiroshima Astrophysical Science Center, is an expert on the development of semiconductor detectors for high-energy astrophysics. He developed silicon sensors for the LAT instrument on the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope
Sakai Yoshio (1923–2002) is a Japanese pioneer in building astronomical observatories for the general public. He established the Hidahiko Tenmondai at his own expense. He also toiled as director of Ogawa Astronomical Observatory (founded in 1991), contributing much to education in astronomy.
Osao Shigehisa (born 1936) a Japanese astronomer, who has actively observed variable stars since 1952. An enthusiastic recorder of the activities of Japanese amateur astronomers, he played an important role in compiling a History of Amateur Astronomy in Japan in 1987, as well as a sequel in 1994.
Takehiro Hayashi (born 1951) is a Japanese professor at Hiroshima University. His main research field is education in astronomy and earth science, and he has given children, students and adults alike many opportunities to observe celestial objects with telescopes.
Saji Observatory, located in Saji, Tottori, Japan. With its 1.03-m telescope, is situated on a hill overlooking Saji village. Saji's 3200 residents constructed their observatory in 1994, and the village assembly adopted a rule of keeping the skies dark.
Kèneke is Flemish for "small child", and it is only from her photographs that the discoverer knows and remembers his elder sister, Virginia Margaretha Anna Elst (1930–1935), who died from meningitis before he was born.
William P. Delaney, director's fellow at M.I.T. Lincoln Laboratory. This is a donation of the fruit of an optical search program to an expert in radar.
Asahi, the mountain range forming the border between Niigata and Yamagata prefectures in the northern part of mainland Japan. Meaning "morning sun", the name is also that of several Japanese towns and villages, as well as of another mountain range.
The Beatles, the great 1960s British popular rock group from Liverpool comprised John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. They are unequalled in the rock era as prolific songwriters and innovative recording artists with George Martin.
Juan Carlos Forte (born 1949), Argentinian astronomer, has conducted most of his professional work at the La Plata Observatory. His main field of research is the galactic and extragalactic system of globular clusters, an area to which he has contributed over 120 refereed papers.
Paul Boltwood (born 1943), a Canadian computer scientist and amateur astronomer. He monitored the peculiar object OJ 287 for some two years. He also obtained deep-sky CCD images with limiting magnitude 24.5 using a home-built 0.4-m reflector.
Irina N. Belskaya, Ukrainian astronomer at the Kharkov Astronomical Observatory (101) and a friend of the discoverer, Claes-Ingvar Lagerkvist. Her research focuses on the spin and surface properties of main-belt minor planets, in particular of M-type asteroids. She has made important contributions in this field by combining photometric and polarimetric observations with optical laboratory measurements of the analogous asteroidal materials
Catherine Labeyrie, a French astronomer and hypersentitisation expert of the 0.9-meter Schmidt telescope at CERGA Observatory, as well as Antoine Labeyrie, a French optician and astronomer.
Michael J. Amato (born 1967) was leading the "Early Mission Proposal" and the "Phase A" of the Lucy mission at Goddard Space Flight Center. He is also involved in NASA's OSIRIS-REx, MAVEN, Dragonfly, and DAVINCI+ missions.
Donya Douglas–Bradshaw (born 1970) is the Project Manager of both the Lucy mission and the "Advanced Topographic Laser Altimeter System" (ATLAS) of the ICESat-2 satellite.
Christyl Chamblee Johnson (born 1967) is the "Deputy Director for Technology and Research Investments" at the Goddard Space Flight Center who has overseen and supported the formulation of the Lucy mission.
Thomas G. Müller, a German astronomer, for his contribution to the study of minor planets in the thermal infrared. His observational work includes mid- to far-infrared photometry, spectroscopy and polarimetry with the Infrared Space Observatory. He has developed and applied various thermophysical models and techniques, in order to derive physical properties of minor planets. Because of the great accuracy he achieved, future telescope projects in the infrared will also benefit from these efforts, since minor planets are well suited as calibration targets, Name proposed and citation prepared by J. S. V. Lagerros.
Scott Negley Jr. (born 1939) is a long-time educator of astronomy. Through his work as a high school planetarium director, he motivated several students to actively pursue a career in astronomy and physics.
Eric M. Eliason (born 1949), an American expert in image-processing techniques and image analysis for the U.S. Geological Survey's Astrogeologic Team, has used this expertise for data restoration and publishing activities in support of the Voyager and Mars Observer projects and the Clementine Mission to the Moon.
Petr Petrovich Petrov (born 1945), a Ukrainian astrophysicist and leading scientist at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, is widely known for his work on the variability of young stars having solar mass. He investigated magnetic and accretive activity in T Tauri stars and developed a concept for the magnetic activity of young stars.
John McFarland (born 1948) has made a major contribution to promoting astronomy at Armagh Observatory. He is well known for his knowledge of astronomy and his short biography of Kenneth Essex Edgeworth, the Irish astronomer who predicted the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt.
Heinrich Erwin Walther Schmadel (1902–1944), German journalist and editor-in-chief of several newspapers. He was killed in World War II in Russia near Stalingrad. His story is only an example of the common tragedy between Germans and Russians. There are thousands of people who never saw their fathers. Among these is Walther's son, astronomer Lutz D. Schmadel. This planet is a sign of understanding, friendship and forgiveness for us all.
George Gamow (1904–1968), a Soviet-American theoretical physicist and cosmologist. His main scientific achievements include the creation of alpha and beta decay theory and the theory of the exploding Universe. Gamow was also the first to decipher the genetic code. He worked at institutions around the world, in Odessa, Leningrad, Göttingen, Copenhagen, Cambridge, as well as in the U.S. Through his popular lectures, articles and books he promoted public interest in science. In 1956 he received the Calling Prize awarded by UNESCO for the popularization of science. Name suggested by S. P. Kapitza and supported by the discoverer.
Hermann Bondi (1919–2005), a British cosmologist, known for work on the steady-state theory of the universe, had an impressive career that encompassed mathematics, radar technology, energy, defence, ecology and humanism. As director general of the European Space Research Organization he was a leader in space research.
Christine Bondi (née Stockman; 1923), a British astrophysicist and mathematician and wife of Hermann Bondi, carried out research with Fred Hoyle in Cambridge on the internal constitution of stars and later taught mathematics at the Reigate Sixth Form College. Active in humanism, she served on the British Humanist Education Committee for many years.
Anja C. Andersen (born 1965), a Danish astrophysicist, is an unusual combination of experimental, theoretical and observational work related to the properties and implications of dust particles. In 2005 she received the European Commission's Descartes Prize for outstanding excellence in science communication.
Genta Yamamoto (born 1942), a Japanese potter, began creating pottery at the age of 20 and is known for his efforts to revive "Hoshino ware", one of the traditional pottery styles of Japan. His works have a motif that imitates heavenly bodies. Known in Japan as "The Man who bakes a planet", he is working on a design in the style of a "star".
Elsa Brändström (1888–1948), a Swedish nurse and philanthropist, was the daughter of diplomat general Edvard Brändström. During World War I, she stood up beyond all measure for indigent German prisoners in Russia.
Henricus Hubertus Altenrath (1832–1892), initiator and first director of the "Nijverheidsschool", a well-known Antwerp school for the teaching of technical professions. Under his direction, the school began teaching in Flemish, which was not common at that time. His name is still honored by the Association "Henric Altenrath". The discoverer has taught for many years at this school.
Aceraceae, the maple family, with two genera and more than 100 species. One well-known species is Acer saccharum (sugar maple), the sap of which is used for maple syrup and maple sugar.
Anacardiaceae, the cashew or mango family, with 80 genera and over 800 species of evergreen and deciduous trees, shrubs and climbing plants. Anacardium occidentale (western cashew) yields a delicious fruit.
Annonaceae, the custard apple family, with more than 2000 species. The trees are mainly tropical and include the species Annona squamosa (sweetsop), which has a sweet, pulpy fruit.
Aquifoliaceae, the holly family, with 700 evergreens and deciduous species. Ilex aquifolium (English holly) belongs to this family, as does Ilex paraguariensis (Yerba maté), which makes a tasteful tea.
Vera Stepanovna Novichkova (born 1937), a Ukrainian doctor and hematologist, is the founder and head of the blood-transfusion station at Bakhchisaraj regional hospital in the Crimea.
Ricarda Huch (1864–1947), a German novelist and poet, and critic of the fascist regime. Born into a prosperous commercial family, she earned a doctorate in history in Zurich in 1891, afterwards working as a librarian and teacher. In 1897 she decided to become a writer. Her novels and stories depict historical figures and events. She was a critic of the fascist regime, and her last unfinished work was to portray the German resistance movement. In 1933, she retired from the Prussian Academy of Arts. Name proposed by the first discoverer, Freimut Börngen.
Bignoniaceae, the catalpa family, with about 100 genera and 700 species with tubular flowers. Among them are Bignonia capreolata (trumpet flower) and Crescentia cujete (calabash).
Buxaceae, the box family, with four or five genera and some 60 species of evergreen trees and shrubs. Buxus sempervirens (English boxwood) has very small leaves and is used for hedges and borders.
Gerhard Lehmann (born 1960), a German amateur astronomer and discoverer of minor planets, who with Jens Kandler measured some 70 precise positions of minor planets and comets from photographic plates obtained at Drebach. Among the 1500 positions he has derived after switching to CCD equipment in 1994 are some for the 1998 opposition of this object. The Drebach positions have made more than 30 Tautenburg objects appropriate for numbering. A teacher of physics and astronomy, Lehmann is also a popularizer of astronomy and since 1997 the head of the minor planets section of the Vereinigung der Sternfreunde.
Celastraceae, the staff-tree family, with 100 genera and over 1000 species including many climbing plants. These include Celastrus scandens (bittersweet) and Euonymus europaeus (European spindle tree), the latter having pink fruit and orange seeds.
Cercidiphyllaceae, a family of plants with only one member, Cercidiphyllum japonicum (katsura tree), regarded as a plant of primitive origin. It was originally classified as belonging to the magnolias, but it seems more related to the planes.
Cornaceae, known as dogwoods, a family of flowering plants, with about 12 genera and 100 species of evergreens, deciduous trees and shrubs. Species include Cornus sanguinea (red dogwood) and Cornus florida (flowering dogwood).
Andrew F. Tubbiolo is a multitalented engineer and enthusiast of space flight working at the University of Arizona's Lunar and Planetary Laboratory. He built some of the electronics on the successful Mars Pathfinder Lander and a complex interface for Spacewatch data acquisition. Discoverer of periodic comet P/2005 E1 (P/Tubbiolo).
Olof Hiorter (1696–1750), Swedish professor of astronomy at Uppsala in 1732–1737 and after 1746, independently discovered comet C/1743 X1 five days after Klinken-berg. With Celsius, he discovered the magnetic nature of aurorae. He donated his library to the Uppsala Observatory, and it is still the rarest part of that collection.
Olaus Johannis Gutho (died 1516), was a Swedish student from the island of Gotland at Uppsala University from 1477 to 1486. His carefully written lecture notes (in seven volumes), the only ones preserved from that time, give good examples of the curricula in those days.
Edvard Hugo von Zeipel (1873–1959), Swedish professor of astronomy at Uppsala University during 1911–1920, is still well known for his theoretical work in celestial mechanics and astrophysics.
Gustaf Svanberg (1802–1882), Swedish professor of astronomy at Uppsala University from 1842 to 1878, built the present building of Uppsala Astronomical Observatory and founded the meteorological observatory. His autobiography gives a good insight into the academic life in Uppsala during the nineteenth century.
Ebenaceae, a family of flowering plants in the ebony family, with only two genera and 500 species. Male and female flowers are usually borne on separate plants. The Diospyros genus dominates, the fruit of the Diospyros virginiana (persimmon) being good to eat. Diospyros ebenum (Macassar ebony) is a valuable wood.
J. Donald Fernie (born 1933), professor emeritus of astronomy at the University of Toronto and former director of the David Dunlap Observatory, is known for his work on variable stars, galactic structure, photoelectric photometry, and the history of astronomy of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.
Rentaro Taki (1879–1903), a Japan composer. After he finished his schooling in Japan he went to Germany and trained at the Music Academy in Leipzig. Not long afterward, however, he developed tuberculosis and returned to Japan to die. His songs, which include "The Moon over the Ruins of a Castle", are among the best loved in Japan.
Dina Prialnik, an Israeli astronomer, is a leading expert in the modeling of the thermal evolution of cometary nuclei. She is also known for her work on white dwarfs and the mechanisms of nova outbursts.
Elaeagnaceae, the oleaster family with three genera and about 50 species. In many species the flowers develop into edible fruits. Elaeagnus augustifolia (Russian olive) has important commercial value for its fruits.
Daniel J. Scheeres (born 1963), an American aerospace engineer in the Department of Aerospace Engineering and Engineering Mechanics at Iowa State University. He has pioneered the investigation of the dynamics of orbits close to small, irregularly shaped minor planets. His research has included studies of the short-term evolution and the long-term stability of orbits around radar-derived models of 4179 Toutatis and 4769 Castalia. His work has far-reaching implications for the operation of spacecraft orbiting minor planets, for the cosmogony of satellites of minor planets and for understanding the distribution of non-escaping impact ejecta on small bodies.
Michel de Montaigne (1533–1592) was a French philosopher much preoccupied by the decline of intellectual optimism from the Renaissance through the Protestant Reformation. His Essays, intimate self-portraits advocating travel, reading and conversation, mark a new approach to literature.
Nha Il-Seong (born 1932), professor emeritus at Yonsei University, Korea, on the occasion of the dedication of his Museum of Astronomy in Yecheon. Professor Nha's major works include photometry of close binary stars, the discovery of the apsidal motion in the CW Cep system and contributions to the history of Asian astronomy. He has served as president of the Korean Astronomical Society and director of Yonsei University Observatory. Name proposed by the discoverer following a suggestion by K. Hurukawa. Citation by I. Hasegawa.
Linnaea Barton Keammerer (1980–1992) died in an accidental shooting. An avid student of nature, she was told while observing comet 1P/Halley in 1986 that she would almost certainly live to see it again. Linnaea enjoyed writing poetry: "One star silent in the sky, Twinkling, yet I don't know why.".
Hugh Miller (1802–1856) was a pioneering Scottish geologist who made significant contributions to the study of fossils, especially in the Old Red Sandstone. With his publications he had a worldwide influence on professional science and its public understanding. His extensive collection was donated to the Royal Scottish Museum
AAVSO, the American Association of Variable Star Observers, one of the premier astronomical organizations, was founded in 1911 by amateur William Tyler Olcott, following Harvard astronomer Edward C. Pickering's prescient vision of a collaboration between amateurs and professionals in the name of science.
Masahiro Yoshihara (born 1928), of Yokkaichi, Japan, has been an amateur astronomer since 1942. From 1943 to 1951 he very actively observed variable stars. On 1946 Feb. 9 he was an independent discoverer of the outburst of the recurrent nova T Coronas Borealis.
Hajime Yano (born 1967), an expert in cosmic dust research and solar system exploration and a pioneer of in-situ studies of meteoroid and orbital debris in space. He also led the Japanese team for airborne observations of the 1998–2002 Leonid meteor storms and developed the sampling device for ISAS' MUSES-C mission.
Takeshi Oshima (born 1966) helped develop the MIC (Mars imaging camera) and SICPU (CPU board for science instruments) loaded on the first Japanese Mars exploration spacecraft "Nozomi". As a systems manager of NTSpace Ltd., he also helped develop the first Japanese sample-return Spacecraft, MUSES-C.
Nick James (born 1962), a leading CCD imager and photometrist who has produced large numbers of precision light curves of cataclysmic variables and images of unusual variables stars and comets.
Tianjin University (Tianjindaxue), founded in 1895 as Peiyang University, is the oldest modern institution of higher education in China and has developed into one of the leading multidisciplinary research universities of the country, in engineering in particular.
Ouyang Ziyuan (born 1935) is a Chinese cosmochemist, geochemist and space advocate. As Chief Scientist for China's Lunar Exploration Program (LEP), he has been responsible for the development of the long-term strategic plans for China's LEP
Zao Kumanodake, located between Miyagi and Yamagata prefectures in the northern part of mainland Japan, was designated as a national park in 1963. Mt. Kumanodake has a height of 1841 meters.
Andrea Boattini (born 1969). an Italian astronomer and discoverer of minor planets. After developing a growing interest in minor planets, he graduated in 1996 from the University of Bologna with a thesis on near-earth objects. He is involved in various projects related to NEO follow-up and search programs, with special interest in the NEO class known as Atens. He currently works at the Istituto di Astrofisica Spaziale of the National Research Council in Rome. The discoverers have started their astrometric activity on minor planets together with him..
Shinji Hagino (born 1959), an engineer who worked on the system design of Japanese scientific satellites such as HALCA (space VLBI satellite) and Akebono (aurora observation satellite).
Takashi Kubota (born 1960) works on intelligent robotics exploration at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science. He was engaged in developing guidance, navigation and control for touchdown and asteroidal surface exploration by a rover in the Hayabusa sample return mission from (25143) Itokawa.
Jun Nishimura (born 1927) works in the fields of cosmic-ray physics and space systems engineering, including scientific ballooning. He served as the director general of the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science between 1988 and 1992, when the Japanese government approved the development of the M-V rocket.
Cesare Beccaria (1738–1794) was an Italian Enlightenment thinker. In his most important work, Dei delitti e delle pene, Beccaria took sides against the death penalty, supporting the educational function of punishment.
Gianni Ierman (born 1955), Italian amateur astronomer, who was the first member to join the Farra d´Isonzo observatory club in 1969. He was the owner of the first club telescope and was the club president in the 1980s
Yasuhiko Takagi (born 1958), a Japanese planetary scientist, has investigated impact fragmentation phenomena and the origin of minor-planet families based on laboratory experiments. He also contributed to the Near-Infrared Spectrometer on board the Hayabusa spacecraft.
Stefano Zavka (1972–2007), was an Italian Alpine guide from Terni. He also took part in two expeditions on K2. After reaching the summit, he disappeared during the descent.
Mount Ortigara, located near the Asiago Astrophysical Observatory, is one of the highest peaks in the Asiago Tableland and was the location of one of the most famous and bloodiest alpine battles of World War I.
Tetsuo Yoshimitsu (born 1970) works on research and development of planetary rovers and is the chief engineer of the asteroid surface explorer MINERVA for the Hayabusa mission. The novel technology resulting from his studies of mobile systems on minor-planet surfaces in a microgravity environment was installed in MINERVA.
Hitoshi Mizutani (born 1944) works mainly on the origin and evolution of the solar system and internal structures of planets. He has been a professor at the Institute of Space and Astronautical Science and played a leading role in Japanese lunar and planetary exploration.
ODAS, the OCA-DLR Asteroid Survey, operated the first and only quasiautomatic European near-Earth-asteroid search program from 1996 to 1999. Five NEAs, ten Mars-crossers and a comet were discovered in the course of this survey. ODAS also produced more than 44~000 astrometric positions of 2200 new minor planets.
Jessika Baral (born 1999) is a finalist in the 2012 Broadcom MASTERS, a math and science competition for middle-school students, for her biochemistry, medicine, health science, and microbiology project.
This name honors in general those who since time immemorial have gazed up at the night sky in wonderment. It honors in particular the noble pursuit of amateur astronomy.
Helge Ingstad (1899–2001), was a Norwegian pioneer explorer and archeologist. Foremost among his many achievements was his and his wife's discovery of remains from the Viking settlements on Newfoundland. This proved that the Vikings reached North America, probably as the first Europeans.
Kim Kashkashian (born 1952), an Armenian-American classical violist. She is known for her particular empathy with the works of composers of the late-twentieth century.
