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Bill Steigerwald 
April 16, 2003
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
(Phone: 301-286-5017)
William.A.Steigerwald{at}nasa.gov

Release: 03-38

ASTEROID NAMED FOR GODDARD ASTRONOMER

Years spent charting a shadow dance between the Moon and the Sun paid 
off last month for NASA astronomer Fred Espenak, an alumnus of Wagner 
College, Staten Island, N. Y., with an asteroid that bears his name.

The organization that assigns official names to celestial objects, 
the International Astronomical Union (IAU), designated "minor planet 
14120" as "Espenak" in the Smithsonian Astrophysics Center Minor 
Planet Circular #48157, issued March 18.

"It's quite an honor to have a piece of real estate in the solar 
system named after you," said Espenak, who is a world-renowned 
authority on solar eclipse predictions at NASA's Goddard Space Flight 
Center, Greenbelt, Md. "I have to be humble, though, because it's a 
small piece, probably just 5 to 10 miles in diameter," he adds with a 
laugh.

The IAU cited Espenak as "widely recognized for his calculations of 
solar eclipses, his magnificent maps of these phenomena, and his book 
'Totality: Eclipses of the Sun'."

Asteroid Espenak is mysterious because it is a faint object, making 
observations to determine its shape and composition difficult. "One 
of the things I'll probably do when I retire is try to take its 
picture from my observatory," said Espenak. It was discovered on 
August 27, 1998 by the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth Object Search 
using a 60-centimeter (24-inch) Schmidt telescope from Anderson Mesa, 
Arizona.

The object is a main belt asteroid with an orbital period of 1,344 
days (3.68years). The tiny body travels in an elliptical orbit whose 
distance from the Sun varies from 325 million to 388 million 
kilometers (202 million to 241 million miles). The most recent close 
approach of asteroid Espenak was on 2002 November 22 when it was 178 
million kilometers (111 million miles) from Earth. Presently, the 
asteroid is an 18th magnitude object in the constellation Taurus, 
which is visible throughout the spring during the early evening
hours.

Notification was informal, according to Espenak, "Colleagues that 
subscribe to the IAU circular saw it and told me." He looked up his 
asteroid in the circular and found it among a list of others recently 
christened with new names, including "Sciam" for the magazine 
Scientific American and "Robinwilliams" after the comedian.

Espenak learned that two friends from Belgium had nominated him: Dr. 
Jean Meeus, an expert in orbital mechanics, and Patrick Poitevin, an 
amateur astronomer who organizes international conferences of 
professional and amateur astronomers to discuss the state of eclipse 
science and solar physics research. "I guess they both appreciated 
the eclipse work I do," said Espenak.

Normally, the discoverer of an asteroid has the first right to name 
it after someone else, but recent automated telescopic surveys gave 
the IAU a surplus of asteroids with nothing but prosaic catalog 
designations. Anyone can petition the IAU to name an asteroid in 
someone's honor, but the process often takes years. Also, IAU's 
Committee for Small Body Nomenclature has specific rules for names, 
including a limit of 16 characters (including punctuation), a 
requirement that the name be pronounceable (in some language), and no 
names from pet animals allowed.

Espenak considers himself fortunate to have a job so closely related 
to his passion: observing and photographing solar eclipses. He will 
travel to Iceland in May for an annular eclipse (a partial eclipse 
where a ring-shaped portion of the Sun remains), and to Antarctica in 
November aboard a Russian icebreaker for a total eclipse.

Espenak publishes the definitive guide to solar eclipses, the NASA 
eclipse bulletin, for every total and annular eclipse with colleague 
Jay Anderson, a meteorologist with Environment Canada, a weather and 
environmental news website. The bulletins include detailed maps of 
the eclipse path, with voluminous information about the location, 
viewing conditions, and climate along the path for eclipse chasers. 
Also included are tips on how to view eclipses safely and photograph 
them successfully.

Espenak posts this information on the web at:
http://sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov/eclipse/

For more about how the IAU names celestial objects, refer to:
http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/iau/info/HowNamed.html

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