Local amateur astronomer Patrick Wiggins announced last week that he had named the last of five asteroids he discovered earlier in his career — and the name would honor his current employer, the University of Utah.
The asteroid, now officially dubbed “Univofutah,” is roughly 1.2 miles across and orbits between Mars and Jupiter more than 100 million miles from Earth. Wiggins said it was the last of five asteroids he discovered between 1999 and 2008, and likely the last he will ever discover.
“Amateurs are pretty much priced out of the asteroid-finding game,” he said. “Back in the ‘80s and the ‘90s, just about anybody who wanted to apply themselves … could find a minor planet.”
Wiggins discovered his asteroids in the comfort of his own home in Stansbury Park using a common method that involves taking multiple pictures of the night sky and then compiling them into a slideshow on a computer.
“As you blink from one picture to the next … stars don’t appear to move,” he said. “But an asteroid, or a planet or a comet — they move relative to the background stars.”
It is the same process that was used to discover Pluto, Wiggins said, and it’s still in use today, although the rapid pace of technology has made it difficult for amateurs to make discoveries from their homes before scientists at universities claim discovery credit.
Wiggins said he chose to name his last asteroid after his employer because of his strong, long-running relationship with the university, where he has worked part-time as a public educator for more than 20 years.
Initially he suggested it as a joke, he said, when there was still some time before his asteroid would come available for naming. Asteroids must be tracked and documented for a good deal of time before they may be officially named. But the university liked the idea, and Wiggins said he felt it was a good way to pay the university back for the way he has been treated all these years.
“The U has been nice to me, so now I’m trying to be nice to them,” he said.
Wiggins named his previous four asteroids Elko, after his hometown; Timerskine, which was named by his former wife for her second husband; Laurelanmaurer, which was named by an individual who won the rights to do so in a fundraising auction; and Nevaruth, which was named for the grandmother of Wiggin’s former wife.
He said Univofutah wasn’t exactly what he had in mind for the name of the fifth asteroid, but those who discover asteroids are only allowed to make suggestions for the name. The final name is selected by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center.
While few people, especially self-taught amateurs like Wiggins, have actually been the first to sight an asteroid, Wiggins said he doesn’t look at the feat as any great accomplishment. Rather, he said, he looks at the large number of known asteroids in space — more than 600,000 — and views his contribution to mankind’s understanding of the universe as relatively small.
“You can look at it as a big fish in a little pond, or as a very, very tiny minnow in the ocean,” he said.
