14 DAY TRIAL // 9-year-old Michael Puzio from North Carolina has just become the first kid to name a space rock. The name he chose for the asteroid, i.e. Bennu (pronounced ben-oo) used to belong to an Egyptian god more often than not depicted by a gray heron.
The asteroid named by Michael Puzio is set to receive a visit as part of NASA's Osiris-Rex sample-return mission in 2018.
More precisely, the NASA spacecraft is to take off in 2016, reach the asteroid in 2018, collect samples and be back on our planet in 2023.
“The samples of Bennu returned by Osiris-Rex will allow scientists to peer into the origin of the solar system and gain insights into the origin of life,” project scientist Jason Dworkin explained.
Up until now, the space rock used to be referred to as (101955) 1999 RQ36, which one must admit does not sound all that approachable.
In order to name this asteroid, the 9-year-old had to enter his name proposal into a competition.
According to Space, about 8,000 other people also came up with names for the space rock, yet Bennu turned out to be the winner.
Bruce Betts, one of the judges in charge of picking the most suitable name for the asteroid, explained their decision to settle for calling the space rock Bennu as follows:
“The name 'Bennu' struck a chord with many of us right away.”
“While there were many great entries, the similarity between the image of the heron and the TAGSAM [Touch-and-Go Sample Mechanism] arm of Osiris-Rex was a clever choice,” Bruce Betts further argued.
Needless to say, Michael Puzio is more than delighted that he was given the opportunity to name this asteroid.
“It's great! I'm the first kid I know that named part of the solar system!” he reportedly told members of the press shortly after finding out that he had won the competition.