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7 asteroids named for Clark

Posted on: Monday, 11 August 2003, 06:00 CDT

7 asteroids named for Clark, crew mates

NASA unit picks group between Mars, Jupiter to remember astronauts

Associated Press

Sunday, August 10, 2003

Washington -- Seven asteroids circling the sun between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter are being named for the astronauts who died in the space shuttle Columbia accident, including Racine astronaut Laurel Salton Clark, officials said last week.

Clark and astronauts Rick Husband, William McCool, Michael Anderson, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown and Ilan Ramon died Feb. 1 when Columbia broke up while returning to Earth from a 16-day orbital mission.

NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif., proposed naming the asteroids for the astronauts.

The plan was approved by the International Astronomical Union and announced Wednesday by the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory's Minor Planet Center, the official clearinghouse for asteroid data.

The named asteroids were discovered by former JPL astronomer Eleanor F. Helin in 2001 using the Palomar Observatory near San Diego. The objects range in size from 3.1 to 4.3 miles in diameter.

"Asteroids have been around for billions of years and will remain for billions more," Raymond Bambery, head of the JPL Near-Earth Asteroid Tracking program, said in a statement. "I like to think that in the years, decades and millenniums ahead people will look to the heavens, locate these seven celestial sentinels and remember the sacrifice made by the Columbia astronauts."

There are more than 100,000 known asteroids, most of them orbiting the sun in a belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter.

The largest, Ceres, is about 580 miles in diameter.

Astronomers believe there may be millions of other asteroids, ranging from a half mile to many miles across.

Asteroids are thought to be rocky fragments left over from the formation of the solar system some 4.6 billion years ago.

The three remaining space shuttles were grounded while the Columbia Accident Investigation Board studied the incident and prepared a report. That report is expected late this month.

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