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Asteroid officially named after xkcd cartoonist Randall Monroe

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Alan Gardner October 7, 2013 1 minute 3 comments

You can have a star named after you for $30, but if you want an astroid named after you, it has to be approved by the International Astronomical Union. xkcd webcomic creator Randall Monroe’s name was nominated and approved for an asteroid that orbits between Mars and Jupiter.

From Robot6:

“The first thing I did was try to figure out whether 4942 Munroe was big enough to pose a threat to Earth,” the cartoonist writes. “I was excited to learn that, based on its albedo (brightness), it’s probably about 6-10 kilometers in diameter. That’s comparable in size to the one that killed the dinosaurs – definitely big enough to cause a mass extinction! Unfortunately Fortunately, it’s in a fairly stable circular orbit between Mars and Jupiter, so it’s unlikely to hit the Earth any time soon.”