Eric Walter Elst (30 November 1936 – 2 January 2022) was a Belgian

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...

at the

Royal Observatory of Belgium The Royal Observatory of Belgium (french: link=no, Observatoire Royal de Belgique, nl, Koninklijke Sterrenwacht van België), has been situated in the Uccle municipality of Brussels (Belgium) since 1890. It was first established in Saint-Josse ...

in Uccle and a prolific discoverer of

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. ...

s. The

Minor Planet Center The Minor Planet Center (MPC) is the official body for observing and reporting on minor planets under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Founded in 1947, it operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Function ...

ranks him among the top 10

discoverers of minor planets This is a list of minor-planet discoverers credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of one or several minor planets (such as near-Earth and main-belt asteroids, Jupiter trojans and distant objects). , the discovery of 612,011 numb ...

with thousands of discoveries made at

ESO The European Organisation for Astronomical Research in the Southern Hemisphere, commonly referred to as the European Southern Observatory (ESO), is an intergovernmental research organisation made up of 16 member states for ground-based ast ...

La Silla Observatory La Silla Observatory is an astronomy, astronomical observatory in Chile with three telescopes built and operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO). Several other telescopes are located at the site and are partly maintained by ESO. The obse ...

in northern Chile and at the Rozhen Observatory in Bulgaria during 1986–2009. The minor planet 3936 Elst, a stony Vestian asteroid from the inner regions of the

asteroid belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...

, roughly 6 kilometers in diameter, was named in his honour.

Discoveries

Elst is credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of 3866 numbered minor planets made between 1986 and 2009. Notable discoveries include

4486 Mithra 4486 Mithra ('' prov. designation:'' ), is an eccentric asteroid and suspected contact-binary, classified as near-Earth object and potentially hazardous asteroid, approximately 2 kilometers in diameter. It belongs to the Apollo group of asteroid ...

, a near-Earth and

Apollo asteroid The Apollo asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after 1862 Apollo, discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s. They are Earth-crossing asteroids that have an orbital semi-major axis greater than that of the Earth ...

, 7968 Elst-Pizarro, which is classified as both asteroid and

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ar ...

, and more than 25

Jupiter trojan The Jupiter trojans, commonly called trojan asteroids or simply trojans, are a large group of asteroids that share the planet Jupiter's orbit around the Sun. Relative to Jupiter, each trojan librates around one of Jupiter's stable Lagrange poin ...

s. His discoveries also include: *

binary asteroid A binary asteroid is a system of two asteroids orbiting their common barycenter. The binary nature of 243 Ida was discovered when the Galileo spacecraft flew by the asteroid in 1993. Since then numerous binary asteroids and several triple ast ...

s such as 4492 Debussy and 15268 Wendelinefroger, *

Amor asteroid The Amor asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after the archetype object 1221 Amor . The orbital perihelion of these objects is close to, but greater than, the orbital aphelion of Earth (i.e., the objects do not cross Earth's orb ...

s such as

21088 Chelyabinsk 21088 Chelyabinsk, provisional designation , is a stony asteroid and near-Earth object of the Amor group, approximately 4 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 30 January 1992, by Belgian astronomer Eric Elst at ESO's La Silla Observator ...

, * and many

main-belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...

asteroids such as

9936 Al-Biruni 9936 Al-Biruni, provisional designation , is a carbonaceous asteroid from the outer region of the asteroid belt, approximately 24 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 8 August 1986, by Belgian and Bulgarian astronomers Eric Elst and Viole ...

(outer MBA),

12838 Adamsmith 12838 Adamsmith, provisional designation , is a stony Koronis asteroid from the outer region of the asteroid belt, approximately 6 kilometers in diameter. The asteroid was discovered on 9 March 1997, by Belgian astronomer Eric Walter Elst at ESO' ...

(Koronian),

13058 Alfredstevens 13058 Alfredstevens, provisional designation , is a stony Vestian asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 3 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered by Belgian astronomer Eric Elst at ESO's La Silla Observatory in Nor ...

(Vestian),

13070 Seanconnery 13070 Seanconnery, provisional designation ', is a background asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 3 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 8 September 1991, by Belgian astronomer Eric Elst at Haute-Provence O ...

(inner MBA), and

13963 Euphrates 13963 Euphrates (), provisional designation , is a resonant Griqua asteroid from the outer region of the asteroid belt, approximately 9 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 3 August 1991, by Belgian astronomer Eric Elst at ESO's La Silla ...

which orbits in a 2:1 resonance with Jupiter. Minor planet articles also exist for

12696 Camus 12696 Camus, provisional designation ', is a carbonaceous background asteroid from the central region of the asteroid belt, approximately 9 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 26 September 1989, by Belgian astronomer Eric Elst at ESO's ...

, 8116 Jeanperrin, 22740 Rayleigh, 6267 Rozhen and 9951 Tyrannosaurus, among others.

Personal life and death

Elst was born in Kapellen on 30 November 1936. He died in

Antwerp Antwerp (; nl, Antwerpen ; french: Anvers ; es, Amberes) is the largest city in Belgium by area at and the capital of Antwerp Province in the Flemish Region. With a population of 520,504,

on 2 January 2022, at the age of 85.VVS
Death notice Eric W. Elst (1936–2022)
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Elst, Eric Walter 1936 births 2022 deaths 20th-century Belgian astronomers 21st-century Belgian astronomers Discoverers of asteroids Discoverers of comets * People from Kapellen, Belgium

Discoveries

Personal life and death

See also

References