The Japanese space agency, JAXA, wants your help in naming a giant silicon-based asteroid that’s about the size of the Golden Gate Bridge.
Researchers are looking for “non-offensive” suggestions, 16 characters long or less, that are better than the current name of this S-type asteroid: 2001 CC21.
The campaign, which ends May 9, comes ahead of JAXA’s plans to fly its Hayabusa2 space probe over this roughly 1,300- to 1,800-foot-long rocky near-Earth asteroid in July 2026.
The winning name will join asteroids such as asteroid 162173 Ryugu, named after a magical underwater ‘Dragon Palace’ from Japanese folklore; 101955 Bennu, named after a bird in Egyptian mythology; and many more orbiting our solar system.
The Japanese space agency, JAXA, wants your help in naming a giant silicon-based asteroid about the size of the Golden Gate Bridge. The campaign comes ahead of JAXA’s plans to fly its Hayabusa2 space probe (pictured above) past the nearly 1,800-foot-long rocky object.
JAXA researchers are looking for “non-offensive” suggestions, 16 characters long or less, and better than the S-type asteroid’s current name: 2001 CC21. After May 9, the winning name will join Bennu, named after the mythological Egyptian bird, and many more in orbit
Asteroid 2001 CC21 orbits the Sun once every 383.1 days or 1.05 years, slightly longer than Earth’s orbit around the Sun.
While the space rock’s distance qualifies it as a “near-Earth object,” according to NASA standards NASA Scientific Definition TeamThe asteroid is only coming within 0.08 astronomical units, or 7,436,465 miles, of Earth’s orbit.
Those millions of miles are a healthy, safe distance for an asteroid like 2001 CC21, which is larger than 97 percent of known asteroids, but small compared to the largest known giants in our solar system, such as ‘planet midget’ who holds the record. 1 Ceres.
Ceres, which orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter and carries a payload of salt ice, is 600 miles long and weighs about 1,035 tons (939,300 kg), making it more than 1,700 times larger than 2001 CC21.
The Japanese space agency, JAXA, has given the Hayabusa2 probe its own cartoon mascot, Haya2-kun (above), whose motto is ‘Do your best!’ The probe will capture images of the asteroid 2001 CC21 in July 2026
First discovered on February 3, 2001 by the US Air Force’s Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) effort, 2001 CC21 has spent more than two decades unnamed.
In 2026, The Japanese probe Hayabusa2 It will pass by 2001 CC21, under the asteroid’s new name, flying at a speed of 5 kilometers per second (11,200 miles per hour).
The new mission, unlike Hayabusa2’s sample collection mission to the asteroid Ryugu, where it launched a copper cannon ball to break up and collect samples, will only take high-quality images of 2001 CC21 as close as possible.
But for those who want to claim the 2001 CC21 name, JAXA notes that its competition will adhere to strict Guidelines of the International Astronomical Union.
The new mission, unlike the Hayabusa sample collection mission to asteroid Ryugu, where it launched a copper cannon ball to break up and collect samples, will only take high-quality images of 2001 CC21 as close as possible.
Scientists hope that Hayabusa2’s asteroid missions, like the upcoming trip to image 2001 CC21, will provide clues about what the Solar System was like at its birth about 4.6 billion years ago.
Hayabusa2’s 2019 mission to asteroid Ryugu (above) came with a price tag of around 30 billion yen ($270 million) and made history by creating the first man-made crater on an asteroid.
To begin with, the international organization disapproves of names that are unpronounceable, offensive or have more than 16 alphabetical characters.
The ideal name is just one word and “not very similar to an existing name of a minor planet or natural planetary satellite.”
The guidelines encourage submitters to avoid offering the names of their pets or trademark names.
They also said that the names of any political or military leader or event in history, no matter how beloved, are “inappropriate until 100 years after the death of the individual or the occurrence of the event.”
“Objects that approach or cross the Earth’s orbit (so-called near-Earth asteroids or near-Earth objects: NEO) are generally given mythological names,” JAXA took note in a statement announcing the campaign.
“That said, there are exceptions to this rule,” they noted, “such as the Itokawa asteroid.”
“So you can also suggest a name outside of mythology.”
Discovered in 1998 by a US Air Force LINEAR threat assessment program, the potentially dangerous 25143 Itokawa was named in honor of Japanese rocket engineer Hideo Itokawa in 2009.
Would-be campaign winners may want to note that observations of 2001 CC21 suggest that it has an elongated shape, similar to Itokawa, as opposed to the roughly spherical meatball shape of asteroids like Ryugu.
Previously successful asteroid names, including 128 Nemesis, 16 Psyche and 48 Doris, come from characters in Greek mythology.
Others, such as 324 Bamberg, named after the German city of Bamberg, or 511 Davida, named after Amherst astronomy professor David Peck Todd, were given a personal name more tied to their discovery.
JAXA said interested parties can Submit your asteroid name ideas online through their form, as long as they are not “offensive”, until May 9.