An asteroid discovered by NASA's NEOWISE spacecraft has been given the formal designation 316201 Malala, in honor of Malala Yousafzai of Pakistan, who received the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014. The asteroid's previous appellation was 2010 ML48.
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) renamed the asteroid as
the request of Amy Mainzer of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory,
Pasadena, California. Mainzer is the principal investigator of NASA's
NEOWISE space telescope. The IAU is the sole worldwide organization
recognized by astronomers everywhere to designate names for astronomical
bodies. So far, Mainzer and the NEOWISE team have focused on pioneers
in civil rights, science and the arts for the astronomical honor. Among
the strong women of history who have already had NEOWISE-discovered
asteroids named for them are civil rights activist Rosa Parks,
conservationist Wangari Maathai, abolitionists Sojourner Truth and
Harriet Tubman, and singer Aretha Franklin.
Asteroid Malala is in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter and
orbits the sun every five-and-a-half years. It is about two-and-a-half
miles (four kilometers) in diameter, and its surface is very dark, the
color of printer toner.
NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory manages the NEOWISE mission for
NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. The Space Dynamics
Laboratory in Logan, Utah, built the science instrument. Ball Aerospace
& Technologies Corp. of Boulder, Colorado, built the spacecraft.
Science operations and data processing take place at the Infrared
Processing and Analysis Center at the California Institute of Technology
in Pasadena. Caltech manages JPL for NASA.
For more information about NEOWISE, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/neowise
Media Contact
DC Agle
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif.
818-393-9011
agle@jpl.nasa.gov
Source: JPL-Caltech/News
