She has had an asteroid named after her, 23238 Ocasio-Cortez. Next time I’m in DC or NY, we’ll have to get together and compare space rocks, since I’m proud to say that 153298 Paulmyers is my namesake. I wonder how close those rocks are to each other? Probably not as close as Minnesota and the East coast.
There’s actually a legitimate scientific basis for honoring Ocasio-Cortez this way.
Evans and Stokes decided to keep things “honorable” by handing out asteroid names to the winners of top science and engineering fairs for students.
“We didn’t want to make it willy-nilly. We wanted to keep it exclusive,” Evans told Business Insider. She said first- and second-place winners of three major student competitions, plus some teachers and mentors, get naming rights.
Ocasio-Cortez took second place in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in 2007, when she was a high school student. Yay! In biology! ONE OF US, ONE OF US!