Several

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 or minor planets in 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 ...

with

Gotland Gotland (, ; ''Gutland'' in Gutnish), also historically spelled Gottland or Gothland (), is Sweden's largest island. It is also a province, county, municipality, and diocese. The province includes the islands of Fårö and Gotska Sandön to the ...

-related names have been discovered and named by Swedish

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 ...

Claes-Ingvar Lagerkvist Claes-Ingvar Lagerkvist (born 1944) is a Swedish astronomer at the Uppsala Astronomical Observatory. He is known for his work on the shapes and spin properties of minor planets. He has discovered three comets, P/1996 R2, C/1996 R3 and 308P/L ...

. Others have been named during courses of the

Uppsala Uppsala (, or all ending in , ; archaically spelled ''Upsala'') is the county seat of Uppsala County and the List of urban areas in Sweden by population, fourth-largest city in Sweden, after Stockholm, Gothenburg, and Malmö. It had 177,074 inha ...

-ESO Survey of Asteroids and Comets at the European Southern Observatory and have not been credited to a single discoverer, but rather collective work. , 175,658 asteroids have been numbered and almost 14,300 of those have been named. 205 have been named after places, persons or fictional figures in Sweden. A portion of these are from the island of Gotland. Gotland is fairly well represented because Lagerkvist has been a summer resident on the island since 1983. The first asteroid to receive a Gotland-related name was 3250 Martebo in 1979, named after a settlement on the island. For the latest naming, a competition hosted by the Swedish Astronomical Society was held in Visby in 2011. The asteroid was named 137052 Tjelvar after Tjelvar, the mythological first man to bring fire to the island, thereby breaking the spell that caused Gotland to sink beneath the waves every day and rise during the night. The suggested names are submitted to the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...

(IAU) for inspection before they are approved. IAU want to keep the number of "troublesome" names to a minimum. Nevertheless, the name 7545 Smaklösa ("Tasteless" or "Tacky") after a Gotlandish music group, passed inspection. According to Lagerkvist: "I don't think they knew what the word meant in Swedish." The names of the asteroids along with a description of what or who they were named after are entered into the

NASA The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA ) is an independent agency of the US federal government responsible for the civil space program, aeronautics research, and space research. NASA was established in 1958, succeeding t ...

Jet Propulsion Laboratory The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA an ...

(JPL) Small-Body Database Browser. A number of the various places on Gotland described there are

socken Socken is the name used for a part of a county in Sweden. In Denmark similar areas are known as ''sogn'', in Norway ''sokn'' or ''sogn'' and in Finland ''pitäjä'' ''(socken)''. A socken is a country-side area that was formed around a church, ...

s but referred to as

parish A parish is a territorial entity in many Christian denominations, constituting a division within a diocese. A parish is under the pastoral care and clerical jurisdiction of a priest, often termed a parish priest, who might be assisted by one or m ...

es; a common practice since most non-Swedes are unaware of the regional distribution in Sweden and parish is the closest form to describe them. On 1January 2016, the sockens were reconstituted into the administrative areas

Districts A district is a type of administrative division that, in some countries, is managed by the local government. Across the world, areas known as "districts" vary greatly in size, spanning regions or counties, several municipalities, subdivisions o ...

. This list is probably incomplete since more asteroids are named frequently.

Asteroids

References

{{Gotland County Gotland Lists of asteroids