Name origin: Slavic goddess of the wilderness, forests and the hunt. The name was chosen in 2018 to mark the discovery taking place during the Polish Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment of Warsaw University, which was led by co-discoverer Andrzej Udalski.
Focus On: (471143) Dziewanna Read Post »
Name origin: Hawai’ian goddess of fertility and childbirth. Mother of many important deities (including Pele, Hi’iaka and Namaka) and herself among the first worshipped on the Hawai’ian islands. She repeatedly transforms herself from an old woman to a young girl, and returns to her homeland periodically to give birth to further generations of humans.
Focus On: (136108) Haumea Read Post »
Deukalion, along with his wife Pyrrha, daughter of Pandora, lived in the northern reaches of Greece. Zeus, angered by the impiety of humankind at the time, sent the Great Deluge. Prometheus warned Deukalion and Pyrrha of the impending apocalypse and they survived by mounting a chest and reaching the dry peaks of Mount Parnassos. Once the waters receded, the couple consulted the Delphic Oracle on how to repopulate the earth.
Focus On: (53311) Deucalion Read Post »
Name origin: Greek son of Zeus and Europa. Because of his just and upright life, after death Rhadamanthus was appointed a judge of the dead and the ruler of Elysium, a blissfully beautiful area of the Underworld where those favoured by the gods spent their life after death.
Focus On: (38083) Rhadamanthus Read Post »
sbolos was a diviner who read omens in the flight of birds, and who predicted the battle with the Lapiths. He eventually caused the fight with Herakles (by bringing the centaurs when he saw Herakles’ wine opened), and thus was indirectly responsible for the deaths of Pholus and Chiron.
Focus On: (8405) Asbolus Read Post »
Name origin: Jack B. Child (b. 1951), software engineer at JPL and Asteroid Project director of the World Space Foundation; honoured for his “generous helpfulness” and for introducing team members to the Palomar project.
Focus On: (4580) Child Read Post »
Named for Nassau Hall, the oldest building at Princeton University. In 1783, when Princeton became the U.S. provincial capital for four months, Nassau Hall served as its seat of government. Congress met in its library on the second floor. The term Old Nassau refers affectionately to the building and serves as a metonym for the university as a whole.
Focus On: (534) Nassovia Read Post »
Name origin: Learning, or mathematics, from the Greek term, to honour the Mathematische Gesellschaft in Hamburg, Germany, which was founded in 1690 and is the oldest still-active mathematical society in the world, and the second-oldest scientific society in Germany.
Focus On: (454) Mathesis Read Post »
Named for Brünn, now Brno, Czech Republic. Located at the confluence of the Svitava and Svratka rivers, Brno has been inhabited since prehistoric times, and is currently the second-largest city in the Czech Republic after Prague.
Focus On: (290) Bruna Read Post »
Sapientia is Latin for “wisdom”. The corresponding Ancient Greek term (Sophia) variously translates to “clever, skillful, intelligent, wise”; it also implies “skill in handicraft and art” in Homeric usage, which has been applied to both Hephaistos and Athene.
Focus On: (275) Sapientia Read Post »
