The Purple Mountain Observatory under the Chinese Academy of
Sciences announced it has named two asteroids after Fei Junlong and Nie Haisheng, two astronauts
from China's second manned space mission in 2005.
According to Yang Jiexing, secretary of the asteroids naming
committee in the observatory, the naming decision has been approved
by the International Astronomical Union.
Yang said code names of the two asteroids, respectively 9512 and
9517, coincide with the dates on which the Shenzhou VI was launched
and returned, according to a Nanjing-based newspaper.
The Shenzhou VI manned spaceship took off on Oct. 12, 2005,
circled around Earth continuously for five days and returned on
Oct. 17, 2005.
"It seems the two asteroids are waiting for the Shenzhou VI to
visit space," said Yang, quoted by the newspaper.
China started naming asteroids in 1979. The country's first
space astronaut Yang Liwei and "Shenzhou" have also been
sharing names with asteroids. Big names like Qian Xuesen, father of
China's space and missile industry, and Yang Zhenning, a
Nobel-prize physicist, have also been used to name asteroids in the
space.
Shenzhou V, China's first manned spacecraft, blasted off in
October 2003, making China the third nation after the former Soviet
Union and the United States to send a human into space.
China's next manned space flight Shenzhou VII, the third in its
space program, is scheduled to take place in 2008.
(Xinhua News Agency March 18, 2007)