The long standing dream of Asteroid In Love‘s Ao Manaka’s came true! The International Astronomical Union has officially designated asteroid 2017 Bx232 as 697402 Ao, honoring the adorable Ao Manaka and the show Asteroid In Love.
The name, which was chosen by the asteroid’s discovering body, Come On! Impacting ASteroids (COIAS) was chosen due to Asteroid In Love‘s role in introducing people to astronomy, geology, and other planetary sciences.
The Mt. Lemmon Survey, located near Tucson, Arizona, first observed 2017 BX232 on March 25, 2006. In 2017, researchers from Come On! Impacting ASteroids (COIAS) confirmed the official discovery using archived data from the Subaru Telescope, employing digital blinking, moving object detection methods, and astrometric measurements to prove that all sightings referred to the same asteroid. 697402 Ao orbits the sun every 5.8 years, with an eccentricity (an astrodynamics term for how much an orbit deviates from a perfect circle) of 0.09. Its inclination (the tilt of an object’s orbit) is approximately 9º.
Asteroid in Love, a 4-panel manga written and illustrated by Quro, was part of Houbunsha’s Manga Time Kirara Carat between January 2017 and June 2024. An anime adaptation by Doga Kobo aired between January and April 2020. The story centers around Mira Konohata and Ao Manaka, who, after promising to discover an asteroid in their childhood, lose contact with each other.
However, as fate would have it, the two reconnect in high school when they inadvertently join the same earth science club. Although Mira is surprised to discover that her long-missing friend is actually a girl instead of the boy from her memories, the two quickly become close. Together, they reignite their long-standing goal of finding an asteroid.
Source: Minor Planet Center
Source: WGSBN-IAU Bulletin
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