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Few people get the chance to name a heavenly body, so when such an opportunity comes along, their selections say a lot about what they hold dear.
Two Utahns - Patrick Wiggins and his former wife Holly Phaneuf - recently named two asteroids they discovered as amateur astronomers back in 1999.
Wiggins selected his hometown of Elko, Nev., as the name for his asteroid. Phaneuf named the other after her new husband.
The two became the first Utahns in Brian Marsden's recent memory to name asteroids. Marsden, the secretary for the International Astronomical Union's committee for small body nomenclature, has voted on asteroid names since 1978. So far, 13,479 of the 145,705 discovered asteroids have been named, he said.
Anyone who discovers a new asteroid can name it, but it often takes several years for the IAU to ensure an asteroid had not been previously discovered and forgotten over time. The IAU likes to monitor the asteroid for more than one orbit. Wiggins' asteroid, Elko, orbited once every 41 months.
Wiggins and Phaneuf initially didn't give much thought to naming the asteroids they discovered because the naming process takes so long. But they jokingly discussed following the lead of a fellow amateur astronomer who named an asteroid for his cat, Spock, by naming an asteroid for one of Phaneuf's cats, Comet.
When the actual time came to name the first asteroid, which was given the provisional designation J99V00S, Wiggins submitted Phaneuf's name. But the IAU declined the name, saying asteroids couldn't be named after discoverers. He then chose Elko.
"It's kind of neat," said Wiggins. "I always tell people finding an asteroid isn't some amazing feat as there are more than 300,000 or even more than that still out there, but it is neat being able to point at something through a telescope and say, 'I discovered that.' "
Wiggins discovered the second asteroid by himself, a few days after discovering Elko, but gave Phaneuf the naming rights because he had already named one. That one was originally numbered 75,072. Phaneuf named it TimErskine after her new husband, according to the IAU's Marsden. She could name it after a person because he was not involved in the discovery, Marsden said.
The official naming process took nearly seven years for Elko, which is between 1 and 3 kilometers in diameter, Wiggins said.
Elko's orbit keeps it well outside of Mars, so it will never come close to posing a danger to Earth, a question some have posed to Wiggins, who downplays the discovery but is still giddy about it.
"It's so much fun," said Wiggins. "It's not a really serious thing - it happens all the time - but it's a treat."
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* SHEENA MCFARLAND can be contacted at smcfarland@sltrib.com or 801-257-8619.
* What is an asteroid? Asteroids are rocky and metallic objects that orbit the sun but are too small to be considered planets. They are composed of material left over from the formation of the solar system.
* How big are they? Asteroids range in size from Ceres, which has a diameter of about 1,000 kilometers, down to the size of pebbles. Sixteen asteroids have a diameter of 240 kilometers or greater.
* Where are they found? Asteroids have been found inside Earth's orbit to beyond Saturn's orbit. Most, however, are contained within a main belt that exists between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Some have orbits that cross Earth's path and some have even collided with the Earth.
* More information about the Elko asteroid, including discovery images, can be found at http://utahastro.info/1999VS.HTML.
Source: http://www.solarviews.com