Dr Rok Nejić, who arrived at Armagh Observatory and Planetarium (AOP) in 2015, has had an asteroid discovered in 1999 named after him. The astronomer and planetarium outreach worker said the honour was “a dream come true”.
Growing up in Slovenia in 1999, Nejić could not have imagined that an asteroid discovered in New Mexico that year would almost 30 years later bear his name.
County Armagh may be best known for its apples, but astronomy was the real attraction for Nejić. He came to AOP in 2015 to undertake a PhD in space and climate physics and has remained there ever since.
More than a decade later, he is one of two AOP employees recently chosen to have a celestial object named after them.
Nejić, who works as a tour and outreach worker at the planetarium, said he thought it was “pretty cool” when he first learned that asteroids could be named after people.
Speaking to BBC News NI, he said he had hoped to “someday get there”, but now described the honour as “a dream come true”.
“I don’t know what to believe myself,” he admitted.
Asteroid (20560) Nejitchi
Nejić explained that asteroids are “little rocks in space”, especially when compared with planets. The asteroid named after him is officially designated (20560) Nejitchi.
“Since that’s the official name, the number there basically indicates the order in which it was discovered,” he said.
The asteroid is now “sitting safely outside the asteroid belt, just orbiting the sun like us,” he explained.
Source: www.bbc.co.uk