An Asteroid Named after the Bibliotheca Alexandrina
Posted on
The Czech Astronomical Society (CAS) held a ceremony in the city of Havlickuv Brod in the Czech Republic on Wednesday, 13 October 2004, on the occasion of the approval of the International Astronomical Union (IAU) to give the name Biblialexa, after the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, to asteroid (minor planet) number 51898 which was discovered by two astronomers from the Czech Republic on 19 August 2001.
The Egyptian Ambassador to the Czech Republic, Mr. Mohamed Mustafa Kamal, was invited to the celebration and was given an official certificate of the approval of the new asteroid’s name. Peter Pravec and Peter Kusnerak, two astronomers from the CAS, discovered the new asteroid.
The nomination and approval of newly discovered asteroids should pass by a specialized scientific committee in the IAU to make sure that the asteroid is new and not already listed. This is done by several astronomical calculations for the asteroid and its orbit. Then, the discoverers have the right to name it and list it in tables of the IAU. The IAU gave out the report on its official bulletin (number 48162), in March 2003.
Asteroid Biblialexa has a diameter of about 6 km and is 450.29 million kilometers away from the sun (approximately three times the distance between the earth and the sun), and it revolves around the sun once every 1905.3 days, which is more than five years.
 | The certificate of naming the minor planet, Biblialexa |