Taiwan’s proposal to name two asteroids discovered by Nantou County’s Lulin Observatory “Kerboguan” and “Sunweihsin” has been approved by the International Astronomical Union.
“Kerboguan” comes from the Chinese name for Taiwan’s first science museum: the National Museum of Natural Science. The Taichung museum is the nation’s biggest and has been visited by nearly 100 million people since its opening in 1986.
Sunweihsin was named after the museum’s director, astronomer Sun Wei-hsin (孫維新). He also served as director of National Central University’s Graduate Institute of Astronomy from 1995 to 1998 and helped establish the Lulin Observatory in 1999.
Photo courtesy of National Museum of Natural Science
Sun is well-known for promoting science activities and exhibitions in creative and interesting ways.
The museum and National Central University yesterday held a ceremony at a meeting of the Astronomical Society to celebrate the naming of the asteroids and mark International Museum Day.
Kerboguan (asteroid No. 207655) was discovered by Lulin Observatory assistant Lin Chi-sheng (林啟生) and US California Institute of Technology astronomer Ye Quan-zhi (葉泉志) on July 25, 2007, the university said.
With a width of 1km to 3km, the asteroid takes 3.45 years to orbit the sun, it said, adding that Kerboguan is 270 million kilometers from the sun at the closest point of its orbit and 410 million kilometers away at its farthest point.
Sunweihsin (asteroid No. 185364) was discovered by Ye and Lulin Observatory director Lin Hung-chin (林宏欽) on Nov. 12, 2006, the university said.
It also measures 1km to 3km wide and takes 3.76 years to orbit the sun, it said, adding that Sunweihsin is 310 million kilometers from the sun at the closest point of its orbit and 420 million kilometers away at its farthest point.
Asteroids are the only celestial bodies that can be named by the people who discover them, it added.
After identifying an asteroid, the observer needs to report the discovery to the Minor Planet Center, which will give the asteroid a temporary identification number.
Scientists observe the asteroid at least four times and ensure that its orbit can be measured before giving it a permanent number.
After that, the discoverer is allowed to name it.
It can take years before the name of an asteroid is settled, as any proposal must be reviewed by a special working group of the International Astronomical Union.
A group of Taiwanese-American and Tibetan-American students at Harvard University on Saturday disrupted Chinese Ambassador to the US Xie Feng’s (謝鋒) speech at the school, accusing him of being responsible for numerous human rights violations. Four students — two Taiwanese Americans and two from Tibet — held up banners inside a conference hall where Xie was delivering a speech at the opening ceremony of the Harvard Kennedy School China Conference 2024. In a video clip provided by the Coalition of Students Resisting the CCP (Chinese Communist Party), Taiwanese-American Cosette Wu (吳亭樺) and Tibetan-American Tsering Yangchen are seen holding banners that together read:
UNAWARE: Many people sit for long hours every day and eat unhealthy foods, putting them at greater risk of developing one of the ‘three highs,’ an expert said More than 30 percent of adults aged 40 or older who underwent a government-funded health exam were unaware they had at least one of the “three highs” — high blood pressure, high blood lipids or high blood sugar, the Health Promotion Administration (HPA) said yesterday. Among adults aged 40 or older who said they did not have any of the “three highs” before taking the health exam, more than 30 percent were found to have at least one of them, Adult Preventive Health Examination Service data from 2022 showed. People with long-term medical conditions such as hypertension or diabetes usually do not
Heat advisories were in effect for nine administrative regions yesterday afternoon as warm southwesterly winds pushed temperatures above 38°C in parts of southern Taiwan, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. As of 3:30pm yesterday, Tainan’s Yujing District (玉井) had recorded the day’s highest temperature of 39.7°C, though the measurement will not be included in Taiwan’s official heat records since Yujing is an automatic rather than manually operated weather station, the CWA said. Highs recorded in other areas were 38.7°C in Kaohsiung’s Neimen District (內門), 38.2°C in Chiayi City and 38.1°C in Pingtung’s Sandimen Township (三地門), CWA data showed. The spell of scorching
POLICE INVESTIGATING: A man said he quit his job as a nurse at Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital as he had been ‘disgusted’ by the behavior of his colleagues A man yesterday morning wrote online that he had witnessed nurses taking photographs and touching anesthetized patients inappropriately in Taipei Tzu Chi Hospital’s operating theaters. The man surnamed Huang (黃) wrote on the Professional Technology Temple bulletin board that during his six-month stint as a nurse at the hospital, he had seen nurses taking pictures of patients, including of their private parts, after they were anesthetized. Some nurses had also touched patients inappropriately and children were among those photographed, he said. Huang said this “disgusted” him “so much” that “he felt the need to reveal these unethical acts in the operating theater