An Asteroid named Bradyharan
Incredibly honoured that the name “Bradyharan” has been chosen for an asteroid in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter.
Artist’s impression of 46925 Bradyharan (Pete McPartlan)
The name was approved by the International Astronomical Union and announced in this recent bulletin.
After a lonely billion years orbiting the sun, the asteroid was discovered in 1998 by the Catalina Sky Survey and initially given the designation (46925) 1998 SS27.
The name is now 46925 Bradyharan.
Subaru Telescope images over 15 minutes on 29 April 2006 (note background spiral galaxy at start of track)
The CSS submitted the name in recognition of my science videos - though I note the citation mentions Numberphile and Periodic Videos with no mention of astronomy-focused channels Sixty Symbols and Deep Sky Videos…
I’m not complaining in the slightest - simply overjoyed about the whole thing!
46925 Bradyharan is the small streak at centre of this image (Deep Random Survey)
The asteroid is quite big at 16km in diameter. It would certainly cause a global mass extinction if it hit Earth.
But fear not, it does not get anywhere near us on its 4.2 year journey around the Sun.
A day on the asteroid takes just over 9 hours and it spins on its own axis in a retrograde motion (opposite to the way Earth spins).
Its orbital path slips below and above the ecliptic plane, meaning it’s visible from both the southern and northern hemispheres at different times.
Location at time of blog post (Feb 2025) about to drop from north to south
This north/south nature of its orbit was a major reason it was chosen “for” me - as I was born in Australia and live in England.
The namers wanted to choose an asteroid that could be seen by amateur viewers of my videos - and Bradyharan is easily found by anyone who knows how to use even a small telescope.
Below is a cool animation of the orbit by Alexander Block that does not appear in my main video…
There’s plenty more information to be found in my video, including size comparisons with major cities (and some minor cities!).
There are also extended interviews to be found with Daniel Bamberger, David Rankin, Mike Merrifield and Adam Block - see the playlist here.
Some stats about the asteroid are here. And some information about its shape can be found here.
I will doubtless be following any more information that comes to hand - so watch this “space”.
And I will possibly reward anyone who captures images of the asteroid and sends them to me! :)