Japan‘s space agency, JAXA, wants your help naming a silicon-based asteroid giant that  roughly the size of the Golden Gate Bridge. 

The researchers are looking for any — ‘non-offensive’ — suggestions, 16-characters long or less, that are better than this S-type asteroid’s current name: 2001 CC21.

The campaign, which ends May 9, comes ahead of JAXA’s plans to fly their Hayabusa2 space probe passed this stony, approximately 1,300-to-1,800-foot long near-Earth asteroid in July 2026.

The winning name will join the likes of asteroid 162173 Ryugu, named after a magical underwater ‘Dragon Palace’ from Japanese folklore; 101955 Bennu, named after a bird from Egyptian mythology; and many more orbiting our solar system.

Japan's space agency, JAXA, wants your help naming a silicon-based asteroid giant very roughly the size of the Golden Gate Bridge. The campaign comes ahead of JAXA's plans to fly their Hayabusa2 space probe (depicted above) passed the stony, nearly 1,800-foot long object

Japan’s space agency, JAXA, wants your help naming a silicon-based asteroid giant very roughly the size of the Golden Gate Bridge. The campaign comes ahead of JAXA’s plans to fly their Hayabusa2 space probe (depicted above) passed the stony, nearly 1,800-foot long object

JAXA researchers are looking for any ¿ 'non-offensive' ¿ suggestions, 16-characters long or less, and better than the S-type asteroid's current name: (98943) 2001 CC21

After May 9th, The winning name will join  asteroid 162173 Ryugu, named after a magical underwater 'Dragon Palace' from Japanese folklore and 101955 Bennu, named after the Egyptian mythological bird

JAXA researchers are looking for any – ‘non-offensive’ – suggestions, 16-characters long or less, and better than the S-type asteroid’s current name: 2001 CC21. After May 9, the winning name will join Bennu, named after the Egyptian mythological bird, and many more in orbit

Asteroid 2001 CC21 orbits the sun once every 383.1 days or 1.05 years, just a little longer than Earth’s own orbit around the Sun.

While the space rock’s distance qualifies it as a ‘near-Earth object,’ by the standards of NASA’s science definition team, the asteroid only ever gets as close as 0.08 astronomical units, or 7,436,465 miles, from Earth’s orbit.

Those millions of miles are a healthy, safe distance for an asteroid like 2001 CC21, which is larger than 97-percent of known asteroids — but small compared to the the largest known giants in our solar system, like record-holder ‘dwarf planet’ 1 Ceres.

Ceres, which orbits the Sun between Mars and Jupiter and carries a payload of salty ice, clocks in at 600 miles-long and weighs an estimated 1035 tons (939,300 kg), making it over 1,700 times larger than 2001 CC21.

Japan's space agency, JAXA, has given the Hayabusa2 probe its own cartoon mascot, Haya2-kun (above) - whose motto is 'Do My Best!' The probe will image the asteroid 2001 CC21 in July 2026

Japan’s space agency, JAXA, has given the Hayabusa2 probe its own cartoon mascot, Haya2-kun (above) – whose motto is ‘Do My Best!’ The probe will image the asteroid 2001 CC21 in July 2026

First discovered on February 3, 2001 by the US Air Force’s Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) effort, 2001 CC21 has gone over two decades unnamed.

In 2026, Japan’s Hayabusa2 probe will pass 2001 CC21, under the asteroid’s new name, flying by at a speed of 5 kilometers-per-second (11,200 miles-per-hour).

The new mission — unlike Hayabusa2’s sample-collecting mission to asteroid Ryugu, where it launched a copper-cannon ball to break up and harvest samples — will only take high-quality images of 2001 CC21 from as close as it can get.

But for those who want to lay claim to naming 2001 CC21, JAXA notes that their competition will adhere to strict International Astronomical Union’s guidelines.

The new mission ¿ unlike Hayabusa's sample-collecting mission to asteroid Ryugu, where it launched a copper-cannon ball to break up and harvest samples ¿ will only take high-quality images of 2001 CC21 from as close as it can get.

The new mission — unlike Hayabusa’s sample-collecting mission to asteroid Ryugu, where it launched a copper-cannon ball to break up and harvest samples — will only take high-quality images of 2001 CC21 from as close as it can get.

Scientists hope Hayabusa2's asteroid missions, like the upcoming trip to image 2001 CC21, will provide clues into what the Solar System was like at its birth some 4.6 billion years ago

Scientists hope Hayabusa2’s asteroid missions, like the upcoming trip to image 2001 CC21, will provide clues into what the Solar System was like at its birth some 4.6 billion years ago

Hayabusa2's 2019 mission to the asteroid Ryugu (above) had a price tag of around 30 billion yen ($270 million) and made history by creating of the first man-made crater on an asteroid

Hayabusa2’s 2019 mission to the asteroid Ryugu (above) had a price tag of around 30 billion yen ($270 million) and made history by creating of the first man-made crater on an asteroid

To start, the international body frowns upon names that a un-pronounceable, offensive, or longer than 16 alphabetical characters.

The ideal name is only one word and ‘not too similar to an existing name of a Minor Planet or natural Planetary satellite.’

The guidelines encourage submitters to avoid offering the names of their pets or names of commercial brands.

They also said that the names of any political or military leader or event from history, no matter how beloved, are ‘unsuitable until 100 years after the death of the individual or the occurrence of the event.’

‘Objects that approach or cross Earth’s orbit (so-called Near Earth Asteroids or Near Earth Objects: NEOs) are generally given mythological names,’ JAXA noted in a statement announcing the campaign.

‘That said, there are exceptions to this rule,’ they noted, ‘such as asteroid Itokawa.’ 

‘So you are also welcome to suggest a name outside mythology.’

Discovered in 1998 by a US Air Force LINEAR threat assessment program, the potentially hazardous 25143 Itokawa was named in honor of Japanese rocket engineer Hideo Itokawa in 2009. 

Aspiring campaign-winners might want to take note that observations of 2001 CC21 suggest that it bears an elongated shape, similar to Itokawa, unlike the roughly spherical, meatball shape of asteroids like Ryugu.

Previously successful asteroid names, including 128 Nemesis, 16 Psyche, and 48 Doris, have come from characters of Greek mythology. 

Others like, 324 Bamberga, which is named after the German town of Bamberg, or 511 Davida, named after Amherst astronomy professor David Peck Todd, were given a personal name more tied to their discovery.

JAXA said that interested parties can submit their asteroid name ideas online via their form, so long as they are ‘non-offensive,’ through May 9.

This post first appeared on Dailymail.co.uk

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