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Stephen P. Laurie
Stephen P. Laurie is a British amateur astronomer. He is a prolific discoverer of asteroids and comets, although his profession is that of an actuary.Independent newspaper A small speck in the sky; but a giant find for insurance man (1997) He has also worked on searches for dwarf stars and discovered a supernova (SN 1997bq in NGC 3147) in 1997. Laurie has named five asteroids he discovered from the Church Stretton area — 7603 Salopia (named after Shropshire), 9421 Violilla, 9428 Angelalouise, 10216 Popastro and 11626 Church Stretton — all discovered at List of observatory codes, observatory 966 Church Stretton and nearby location Ragdon (observatory J17). Laurie lives and works in the Church Stretton area.
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Asteroid
An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. Of the roughly one million known asteroids the greatest number are located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, approximately 2 to 4 AU from the Sun, in the main asteroid belt. Asteroids are generally classified to be of three types: C-type, M-type, and S-type. These were named after and are generally identified with carbonaceous, metallic, and silicaceous compositions, respectively. The size of asteroids varies greatly; the largest, Ceres, is almost across and qualifies as a dwarf planet. The total mass of all the asteroids combined is only 3% that of Earth's Moon. The majority of main belt asteroids follow slightly elliptical, stable orbits, revolving in the same direction as the Earth and taking from three to six years to comple ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
