The University of New Mexico

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Media Contact: Steve Carr, (505) 277-1821; e-mail: scarr@unm.edu

September 7, 2006

Asteroid Named After UNM Scientist

Once every three years, the International Astronomical Union honors scientists from the Meteoritical Society for their achievements in the field with a unique award that's simply out of this world – they bestow names of scientists on asteroids. This year, at the 69 th Annual Meteoritical Society meeting held in Zurich, Switzerland, University of New Mexico Research Assistant Professor Barbara Cohen was recognized for her achievements with “Asteroid 6816 Barbcohen.”

Cohen, a member of the UNM Institute of Meteoritics, was one of 35 members the Meteoritical Society recognized with the honor this year. Cohen was cited for her work on lunar meteorites, which are pieces of rock knocked off the moon that fall to earth.

Lunar meteorites come from places that no humans or robots have yet visited, so they contain material unique in the lunar sample collection. Cohen's work on age-dating these meteorites has helped test a controversial idea, called the late heavy bombardment, where a swarm of impactors hit the Earth and moon nearly four billion years ago, with potentially catastrophic effects on the atmosphere, continents, and emerging life.

“It's a secret, burning desire I've had – to have an asteroid named after me. It's pretty amazing,” Cohen said.

There are many thousands of asteroids, which are small, rocky objects orbiting the sun, most of them between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Many small asteroids are discovered every year in sky survey projects, and it was in one of these surveys (U.K. Schmidt-Caltech Asteroid Survey) that the object formerly known as 1981 EB28 was discovered in 1981. People who find or discover asteroids usually get first crack at suggesting names to the International Astronomical Union.

The discoverer of 1981 EB28 was Bobby Bus, a planetary scientist who has discovered hundreds of asteroids and now works with the Meteoritical Society to bestow the honor upon deserving scientists.

The announcement came as a surprise to Cohen, who was named along with many of her friends, which made the honor even more special. The asteroid is only 2-5 km big and appears as just a faint speck to even powerful telescopes.

“It's in a stable orbit in the main asteroid belt hanging out with other asteroids, so there's no chance of it falling from orbit and destroying the Earth,” Cohen joked.

Other researchers at UNM who also have asteroids named after them are James Papike, professor Emeritus, Earth and Planetary Sciences, and research professor at the Institute of Meteoritics, Rhian Jones, research associate professor, also from Earth and Planetary Sciences, and Jack Brandt in the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy.

For more information on UNM's Institute of Meteoritics visit: http://epswww.unm.edu/iom/home.htm .

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