How to Get an Asteroid Named After You
The rules behind the naming rights for cosmic rocks
Mary Lou Whitehorne was at a work conference in 2007 when her colleagues surprised her with an asteroid.
They were at an annual meeting of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in Calgary. Whitehorne, a member of the organization and a longtime science educator, was standing outside of a pub, engaged in a conversation, when a coworker called her inside. He had a special announcement to make: A small asteroid, orbiting between
