It's a bird... It's a plane... It's ...
Asteroid Joegoldstein

by Daniel J. Fitzgibbons, Chronicle staff

dministrators often revel in the perks that come with their jobs. A state car. A personal parking space. An office with a view.

     But how they can compete with College of Engineering dean Joe Goldstein, who now has his own asteroid?

     The heavenly objects's full name is "Joegoldstein," minor planet designation 4989. Goldstein had the asteroid named after him through the collaboration of Tim McCoy, curator of the U.S. National Meteorite Collection at the Smithsonian, who wrote the citation; S. J. "Bobby" Bus, who discovered and then donated the asteroid; and others. (And how about this? There already was an asteroid named Goldstein.)

     The dean's asteroid was discovered in 1981 by Bus at Siding Spring in Australia during the U.K. Schmidt-Caltech Asteroid Survey; it's one of the more than 700 minor planets that Bus has discovered in his career. McCoy's citation references Goldstein's work at UMass on metallographic techniques and experimentally determined phase relationships. Goldstein's work, McCoy wrote, "is vital to understanding the formation and structure of iron meteorites."

     Want an asteroid named after you? Well, who doesn't? The Planetary Sciences Division, part of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, gives a lively "how to" on naming an asteroid:

     "The discoverer of a particular object has the privilege of suggesting a name to a committee (part of the International Astronomical Union) that judges its suitability. Contrary to some recent media reports it is not possible to buy a minor planet. If you have a name you would like to apply, the best advice is 'Go out and discover one!'"
Other guidelines for naming an asteroid include that it's one word (preferably), non-offensive, and less than 17 characters. Names of pets are discouraged.

     Dean Goldstein will be pleased to know that he shares this heavenly distinction with such notables as Icarus, Beethoven, Anne Frank, Jackie Robinson, Isaac Newton, James Bond, Don Quixote, Euripides, Jerry Garcia, and all four Beatles.

Karen Skolfield, director of Communications at the College of Engineering, contributed (greatly) to this story.