Friday 13 June 2014

Out Of This World : Part 7


Continuing my series on asteroids named after lgbt people we reach those asteroids discovered from 1995 to 1999. As before I’ve quoted from the original citations and added extra information were necessary. The numbers which precede each name are those officially assigned to them.

(11098) Ginsberg                  Discovered 2 Apr. 1995. Name published 9 May 2001. “Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997), American lyric poet and teacher, was born in Paterson, New Jersey, and studied at Columbia College, New York City. He became a central figure among the Beats… with the publication of his long poem ‘Howl’ in October 1955.” 

(12413) Johnnyweir              Discovered 26 Sept. 1995. Name published 30 Mar. 2010. “Johnny G. Weir (b.1984) is an American athlete, figure-skating champion and Olympian, talented in many spheres of artistic endeavour. He is known for his unique skating style, outspokenness and love for Russian culture. The name was suggested by his Russian fan-site.” 

(10204) Turing                       Discovered 1 Aug. 1997. Name published 4 May 1999. “Named in memory of Alan Turing (1912—1954), English mathematician and logician, a pioneer in the study of computability. In a fundamental paper published in 1936, he introduced the concept of an abstract computing machine and showed how such a machine can be programmed to simulate the behaviour of any other computing device. This concept, now referred to as a “universal Turing machine”, was introduced years before the advent of programmable computers, and it was used to demonstrate the existence of non-computable numbers and undecidable mathematical propositions.”

(17744) Jodiefoster               Discovered 18 Jan. 1998. Name published 21 Sept. 2002. “Jodie Foster (b.1962) is an accomplished actress and film director. For most astronomers she will always be Eleanor ‘Ellie’ Arroway in Robert Zemeckis' movie ‘Contact’, based on the novel by the same name written by the late Carl Sagan.” 

(11385) Beauvoir       Discovered 20 Sept. 1998. Name published 23 May 2000. “Simone de Beauvoir (1908-1986) was a French writer of great courage and integrity, who made a point of equal vocation for man and woman. In her treatise ‘Le Deuxième Sexe’ (1949) she pleaded passionately for the abolition of the myth of “eternal feminine”. She was the lifelong companion of Jean-Paul Sartre.” 

(12923) Zephyr          Discovered 11 Apr. 1999. Name published 28 Sept. 2004. “The word zephyr derives from the name of the ancient Greek god of the west wind, Zephyros.” Zephyros and Apollo were rivals in love of the prince Hyakinthos (Hyacinth). 

(40463) Frankkameny           Discovered 15 Sept. 1999. Name published 3 July 2012. “Frank L. Kameny (1925–2011) trained as a variable star astronomer in the 1950s, but joined the Civil Rights struggle. His contributions included removing homosexuality from being termed a mental disorder in 1973 and shepherding passage of the District of Columbia marriage equality law in 2009.” 

(25619) Martonspohn           Discovered 3 Jan. 2000. Name published 28 Apr. 2010. “Márton Spohn (b.1989) was awarded second place in the 2009 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for his cellular and molecular biology project. He attends the Fazekas Mihaly Secondary Grammar School, Budapest, Hungary.” 

(37117) Narcissus     Discovered 1 Nov. 2000. Name published 9 Apr. 2009. “In Greek mythology Narcissus was a hero from the territory of Thespiae in Boeotia who was renowned for his beauty. In the various stories, he became obsessed with his own reflection in a pool and, for one reason or another, died as a result.” 

ASTEROID ALLIES
Asteroids that are not named after lgbt people but have lgbt links.

(58345) Moomintroll             Discovered 7 Feb. 1995. Name published 17 May 2011. “Moomintroll is the central character of the classic 1946 novel ‘Comet in Moominland’ … by Finnish author Tove Jansson. Moomintroll and his friends discover that a comet is on a collision orbit with the Earth and the story details their adventures to avoid the threatened catastrophe.” Tove (1914-2001) was a well-known out lesbian writer and artist in Finland.

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