15811 Nüsslein-Volhard, provisional designation , is a dark background
asteroid
An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...
from the outer region of the
asteroid belt
The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids ...
, approximately 16 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 10 July 1994, by German astronomer
Freimut Börngen
Freimut Börngen (; 17 October 1930 – 19 June 2021) was a German astronomer and a prolific discoverer of minor planets. A few sources give his first name wrongly as "Freimuth". The Minor Planet Center credits him as F. Borngen.
He studied gal ...
at the
Karl Schwarzschild Observatory
The Karl Schwarzschild Observatory (Officially: ''Thuringia State Observatory Tautenburg'') is a German astronomy, astronomical observatory in Tautenburg near Jena, Thuringia. It is owned and operated as under public law by the Thuringia, State of ...
in Tautenburg, Germany. It was named for Nobelist
Christiane Nüsslein-Volhard
Christiane (Janni) Nüsslein-Volhard (; born 20 October 1942) is a German developmental biologist and a 1995 Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine laureate. She is the only woman from Germany to have received a Nobel Prize in the sciences.
NÃ ...