[Az-Geocaching] Mega Magnets

[Jim Scotti]

  I've been on just enough different programs that show up on the History
Channel or Discover Channel that I can't keep track of which one it was....  
Anyway, I'm at the telescope right now looking for more of the little
beasties that might hit Earth someday, which might explain why I'm responding
to your message at 1:21 in the morning on a weeknight....
  There's actually a madness to our method in naming objects.  They are named
in order of their receipt by the Minor Planet Center where we send all our
observations and new discoveries.  One of the objects I'm "famous for"
discovering is 1997 XF11 which was erroniously predicted to have a high
chance of impact in 2028 a few months after I discovered it.  1997 is the
year I found it in and I found it in early December of that year(on the 6th
to be exact), in the "Xth" half month (skipping "I" and not getting to "Z" in
the 24 half months of the year).  The first asteroid of 2003 was called 2003
AA, the 2nd 2003 AB, and the 27th 2003 AA1.  So 1997 XF11 was the 292nd
asteroid designated from the first half of December 1997.  BTW, after an
object is observed well enough that its orbit is really secure, the object
will be numbered and at that point we can name the asteroid.  For example,
1997 XF11 was recently number (35396) but I haven't named it yet.  (3594) is
named Scotti after me which one of my colleagues named for me about 15 years
ago....
  Well, you did sort of ask.... :-P

Jim.

On Fri, 31 Jan 2003, Regan Smith wrote:

> I saw you on the History Channel the other day, they were talking about
> these weird space born objects that at time crash into the Earth, and that
> YOU spotted one that is still out in space then they gave a little story,
> now I was thinking, which can be dangerous, but I thought you should have
> called it Jim's or something but then again your middle name could be Alpha
> numeric.. :)

Jim Scotti
Lunar & Planetary Laboratory
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721 USA                 http://www.lpl.arizona.edu/~jscotti/