An Asteroid for Alice

 

 

As long-time readers of this blog know, I have been active in searching for Near Earth Asteroids (discovering two: 2005 GG₈₁ and 2015 CA₄₀). As part of that search, I also discovered a number of new Main Belt asteroids. 

A batch of these, that where discovered by Krisztian Sárneczky and me with the 60-cm Schmidt of MPC 461 Piszkéstető in Hungary in the period 2012-2016, are now well observed enough that they are getting permanent numbers issued by the MPC. Which means that we have the opportunity to suggest names for these asteroids to the IAU.

The first name we proposed was accepted and published by the Work Group on Small Body Nomenclature (WGSBN) of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) last week. 

It is with much pleasure that I can announce that asteroid (551014) = 2012 UU₁₈₅ will henceforth be called:

 

(551014) Gorman

 

...after Dr Alice Gorman, a pioneer "Space Archaeologist" and senior Lecturer at Flinders University in Australia.

 

Dr Alice Gorman

 

Dr Alice Gorman is a pioneer in the field of Space Archaeology: the study of human material culture in space, and Space-Age related human material culture on earth (e.g. old launch or tracking sites). Some of you may know here from her book "Dr Space Junk vs the Universe" (if you don't know the book, I can warmly recommend it).

 The naming citation for the asteroid was published on 3 September 2021 in WSGBN-bulletin vol 1. nr 7 and reads:

(551014) Gorman = 2012 UU₁₈₅ 

Discovery: 2012-10-18 / K. Sárneczky, M. Langbroek * / Piszkéstető / 461 

Alice Gorman (b. 1964) is an Australian archaeologist and an expert in lithic analysis and Heritage management. She is one of the pioneers in the field of space archaeology, the study of human material culture in space and related material culture on Earth.

Asteroid (551014) Gorman was discovered on 18 October 2012 as a magnitude +19.2 object by Krisztian Sárneczky and me with the 60-cm Schmidt of MPC 461 Piszkéstető Observatory in the Matra mountains of Hungary. The animated GIF in the top of this post shows a 'blink' of a small part of the three discovery images (taken about 15 minutes apart). The asteroid can be seen as a faint moving dot in the center.

Our initial internal reference for the objects given on the night of discovery was object SaLa016. After submission to the MPC, it got the temporary designation 2012 UU₁₈₅. In June this year, it was issued the permanent number (551014).

(551014) Gorman is an approximately 2 km wide asteroid (H = 15.9) that moves in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. It is a Main Belt IIIb type asteroid with perigee at 2.97 AU and an orbital inclination of 14 degrees. It takes the asteroid 5.8 years to complete one orbit around the sun.

 

It makes me very happy to have been able to name this asteroid after Alice!