On August 24, the day the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games concluded successfully, on a communiqué launched by the Minor Planet Center (MPC), a newly discovered asteroid was christened "Beijing Aoyun," or Beijing Olympics.

The asteroid, Number of 23408, was discovered by China's Purple Mountain Astronomical Observatory on October 12, 1977 in the Taurus constellation.

To commemorate and celebrate the great event, the observatory appealed to the MPC for the right to name it after "Beijing Aoyun," so as to keep the
great event shining forever in the galaxy.

The "Beijing Aoyun" asteroid rotates in an elliptical orbit with an eccentricity of 0.19, an average of 458 million kilometers from the sun. It travels nearly 1.476 million kilometers a day, and takes 5.3 years to complete one rotation around the sun.

On the asteroid, a rich resource of the universe is preserved. In the future of mankind space travel, in-depth exploration of asteroids will play an important role and be of great significance.

By People's Daily Online