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Asteroid 21459 Chrisrussell Named After Dawn Principal Investigator by the International Astronomical Union (IAU)
In 2008, the IAU named Asteroid 21459 Chrisrussell in honor of Christopher T. Russell, Principal Investigator of the Dawn mission to the asteroids Vesta and Ceres. Professor C. T. Russell is a member of the faculties of both the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics and the Department of Earth and Space Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). He is also the interim System-wide Director of the Institute of Geophysics and Planetary Physics (IGPP).
Asteroid 21459 Chrisrussell was discovered by the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS) in Arizona, as part of an ongoing NASA-funded search for near-Earth asteroids. The naming of astronomical objects is undertaken by the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The IAU’s mission is to promote and safeguard the science of astronomy in all its aspects through international cooperation. Generally the person or organization that discovered the small body has a significant role in bestowing the name, within the IAU’s nomenclature guidelines.
+ Learn more
+ An interview with Chris Russell
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