Tag: Joel Metcalf

Minor Planets Named After Their Discoverers

To the best of my knowledge, only 18 minor planets have been named after their discoverers. While the discoverer has first naming rights, they cannot name a minor planet after themselves, though they can (and sometimes do) name a minor planet after a spouse, parent, or child.

Of course, many minor planet discoverers have minor planets named after them, but almost always these are discoveries by someone else who decides to name one of “their” minor planets after the other discoverer.

In the rare situation when someone decides (and has the authority) to name a discoverer’s minor planet after the discoverer, it is almost always a posthumous honor. Comet discoveries, on the other hand, are automatically named after their discoverer(s).

I have reader Rafael to thank for letting me know that Eugène Delporte does indeed have an asteroid he discovered named after him (see comments after Eugène Delporte and the Constellation Jigsaw) and this got me wondering if there were other examples. I wrote a SAS program to do some fuzzy matching between asteroid name and asteroid discoverer, and came up with the following list. Let me know if there are any others I missed, and I will include them here.

792 Metcalfia
Discovered 1907 Mar 20 by Joel Hastings Metcalf (1866-1925) at Taunton, Massachusetts.

989 Schwassmannia
Discovered 1922 Nov 18 by Arnold Schwassmann (1870-1964) at Bergedorf, Germany.

1074 Beljawskya
Discovered 1925 Jan 26 by Sergey Ivanovich Belyavskij (1883-1953) at Simeïs, Crimea.

1111 Reinmuthia
Discovered 1927 Feb 11 by Karl Reinmuth (1892-1979) at Heidelberg, Germany.

1274 Delportia
Discovered 1932 Nov 28 by Eugène J. Delporte (1882-1955) at Uccle, Belgium.

1596 Itzigsohn
Discovered 1951 Mar 8 by Miguel Itzigsohn (1908–1978) at La Plata, Argentina.

1648 Shajna
Discovered 1935 Sep 5 by Pelageya Fedorovna Shajn (1894-1956) at Simeïs, Crimea.

1655 Comas Solá
Discovered 1929 Nov 28 by José Comas Solá (1868-1937) at Barcelona, Spain.

1666 van Gent
Discovered 1930 Jul 22 by Hendrik van Gent (1899-1947) at Johannesburg, South Africa.

1777 Gehrels
Discovered 1960 Sep 24 by C. J. van Houten, I. van Houten-Groeneveld, and Tom Gehrels (1925-2011) at Palomar Mountain, California.

1927 Suvanto
Discovered 1936 Mar 18 by Rafael Suvanto (1909-1940) at Turku, Finland.

2044 Wirt
Discovered 1950 Nov 8 by Carl A. Wirtanen (1910-1990) at Mount Hamilton, California.

2246 Bowell
Discovered 1979 Dec 14 by Edward L. G. Bowell (1943-2023) at Anderson Mesa, Arizona.

3019 Kulin
Discovered 1940 Jan 7 by György Kulin (1905-1989) at Budapest, Hungary.

5540 Smirnova
Discovered 1971 Aug 30 by Tamara Mikhajlovna Smirnova (1935-2001) at Nauchnyj, Crimea.

5900 Jensen
Discovered 1986 Oct 3 by Poul B. Jensen (?-) at Brorfelde, Denmark.

19911 Rigaux
Discovered 1933 Mar 26 by Fernand Rigaux (1905-1962) at Uccle, Belgium.

96747 Crespodasilva
Discovered 1999 Aug 16 by Lucy d’Escoffier Crespo da Silva (1978-2000) at Westford, Massachusetts.

Incidentally, here are the three most prolific minor planet discoverers that still have an unnamed minor planet discovery that could be named after them. There are, of course, many others who deserve this honor.

Eleanor F. Helin (1932-2009)
Even though 3267 Glo is named after her nickname “Glo”, why not designate one of her discoveries as Helin or Eleanor Helin or Eleanorhelin? There are many still available, beginning with 5131 (1990 BG).

Carolyn Shoemaker (1929-2021)
Though 4446 Carolyn is named after her, why not designate one of her discoveries as Carolyn Shoemaker or Carolynshoemaker? There are many still available, beginning with 48576 (1994 NN2).

Gary Hug (1950-)
There are many still available, including 32165 (1998 FS92).

Seth Barnes Nicholson

American astronomer Seth Barnes Nicholson was born 130 years ago this day in Springfield, Illinois on November 12, 1891. He attended Drake University in Des Moines from 1908-1912, receiving a B.S. degree in physics (with an astronomy emphasis) in 1912. At Drake, Nicholson was inspired to pursue a career in astronomy by Prof. D. W. Morehouse (then astronomy professor and later president of Drake University). He went on to obtain a Ph.D. in astronomy at the University of California in 1915.

Even though Nicholson died in 1963, he held the distinction until the year 2000 of discovering more moons of Jupiter than anyone since Galileo. Both men discovered four satellites each. Their record has now been surpassed. Graduate student Scott Sheppard and his colleagues at the University of Hawaii discovered 10 new moons of Jupiter in 2000 using an 88-inch telescope and a sensitive CCD camera atop Mauna Kea in Hawaii. Jupiter is now known to harbor 79 moons.

While at Drake, undergraduates Seth Nicholson and his wife-to-be Alma Stotts calculated the orbit of an asteroid discovered by Joel Metcalf in 1909. In those days before electronic computers, the privilege of naming an asteroid usually went not to the discoverer but to the person calculating its orbit! So, in 1911, the asteroid became known as 694 Ekard—which is “Drake” spelled backwards. One wonders why they didn’t choose the name Drake, because not until 2001 was an asteroid given that name. 9022 Drake was discovered in 1988 by Carolyn & Eugene Shoemaker and it is named after Michael J. Drake (1946-2011). Discovered just a year later—though numbered earlier (requires an accurate orbit)—and receiving a name only in 2015, asteroid 4772 Frankdrake is named after SETI pioneer Frank Drake (1930-).