Announcing Asteroid 158092 Frasercain

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Well, I’ve just been accepted into an elite club of people with astronomical objects named after them. And no, my Mom didn’t name a star after me. The asteroid hunting team of David Healy and Jeff Medkeff have collectively discovered 487 asteroids, and designated 62 of them. You might already recognize some of asteroid names: Philplait, Paulmyers, Rebeccawatson, and Derekcolanduno.

At the end of August I received an email from David Healy notifying me that I was a new member of the asteroid club.

Asteroid 158092 Frasercain was officially designated on August 21, 2008. You can see the full list of named asteroids here – scroll down to see Frasercain. And you can see its current position in the Solar System here.

Those of you who know Jeff Medkeff will know the sad part of this story. Jeff, aka “The Blue Collar Scientist”, passed away on August 3rd from complications with liver cancer – he was 39. I’ve got to be honest and tell you that I didn’t know Jeff. We clearly ran in similar circles, but it wasn’t until Phil, Pamela and other people in the space blogging community informed me of his death that I found and read through his blog; I really wish I’d found it earlier.

If you haven’t already, please visit the Blue Collar Scientist blog. And you can read a very moving blog entry fulfilling Jeff’s last request.

So to Jeff and David, thank you very much for this incredible honour – I promise this won’t go to my head… much.