WHAT do Aberystwyth University physics lecturer Dr Tony Cook, Scott of the Antarctic, J R R Tolkien, John Lennon, James Bond, Sir Christopher Wren and David Bowie all have in common?

The answer is they have all had asteroids named after them.

Asteroids are irregularly-shaped rocky or metallic objects which orbit the sun, and usually lie in the asteroid belt, between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. They date from when the rocky planets first started to form.

A few weeks ago, the asteroid formerly known as ‘2003 JO13’ was renamed ‘Tonycook’ in recognition of Dr Tony Cook’s amateur astronomy outreach and planetary topographic mapping work.

Asteroids vary widely in terms of their size, from just a few metres up to a few hundred kilometres.

The precise size and shape of the Tonycook asteroid is not known, but it is estimated to be anywhere from 2.8 to 6.3km in diameter. This equates to somewhere between the size of the towns of Aberystwyth or Shrewsbury.

Tony, an amateur astronomer specialising in the moon, said: “I was so surprised and honoured to learn that they had named an asteroid after me."

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