Something about education everyone should know » « “A surprising amount of death of small vertebrates in the Amazon is likely due to arthropods such as big spiders and centipedes.”

Congratulations on joining the club, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez!

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!

Something about education everyone should know » « “A surprising amount of death of small vertebrates in the Amazon is likely due to arthropods such as big spiders and centipedes.”

Comments

  3. euclide says

    My favorite named asteroid remains 52665 Brianmay

    In 2007 Brian May (b. 1947) received his Ph.D. in astrophysics from Imperial College, London, for a thesis on zodiacal dust. Eight months later he became chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University. He is also lead guitarist and songwriter for the rock group “Queen”. The name was suggested by P. Moore.

    I love that his non scientific carrier seems to be an afterthought

  4. says

    In case anyone was wondering:

    Here are the International Astronomical Union’s rules for naming asteroids and other small bodies in the solar system – https://www.iau.org/public/themes/naming/#minorplanets .

    One of the rules:

    The names of individuals or events principally known for political or military activities are unsuitable until 100 years after the death of the individual or the occurrence of the event

    So Rep. Ocasio-Cortez would not be able to have an asteroid named after her now; nor would any other member of Congress. But 23238 was named a decade before Rep. Ocasio-Cortez became known primarily as a politician. So; like everyone else who gets an asteroid out of the block of objects that the LINEAR survey allocated for winners of the Intel competition, the rock pile will continue to be named after her.

  5. a_ray_in_dilbert_space says

    Great. Cue the God botherers finding deep and ominous religious significance and the right-wing, gun-toting pervs getting off on the fact that Ocasio-Cortez now has a celestial body named after her. I’m sure Matt Gaetz is working on his pick up line as we speak.

  6. says

    So thats one asteroid to hit the Whitehouse and another to hit the GOP convention. They might be the only asteroids ever to cause a smaller catastrophe than the one they prevent.

  7. Callinectes says

    My preference would be to grant my name to an asteroid on a collision course, if only to hear my name spoken in fear and alarm.

  8. =8)-DX says

    Ha, don’t forget 153289 Rebeccawatson! Asteroid-named leftists are the best leftists it seems.