Star-Gayzing: Cervantes is a Real Star

In the past I’ve written a lot about minor planets (or asteroids, as they are also known) that are named after members of the lgbt+ community. I’ll be publishing another list in June. Some of the major and dwarf planets have names with lgbt+ associations (Jupiter/Zeus and Ganymede, for example). Further afield there are billions of stars waiting for us to give a name to.

For about 30 years astronomers have been discovering that a lot of stars have planets orbiting them. These are called exoplanets. Like every other object in the night sky that is discovered, whether they are stars, planets, asteroids or comets, they are given reference designations made up of letters and numbers. Not many of them have been given names, so today I’d like to concentrate on one of those stars and its exoplanets that have lgbt+ connections. This is the star system with the astronomical designation of Mu Arae.

First of all, where is Mu Arae? Its one of the stars in the little known constellation of Ara the Altar. This is a constellation immediately below the “tail” of Scorpius and can be seen in both the northern and southern hemispheres. It appears in the traditional sky lore of communities as far afield as the Mediterranean, China and Australia. None of Ara’s stars are particularly bright, and it doesn’t help that the Milky Way cuts straight behind it. In the star map below I have circled Mu Arae in red.

Now that we know where Mu Arae is, what is its new name? After a highly successful campaign the star was given the proper name Cervantes in 2015, after the great Spanish poet and author Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616).

In the late 20th century there was a lot of questioning into Cervantes’ sexuality, largely based on his writings inspired by his experience in 16th century Algiers and its atmosphere of sexual freedom. Decades later there is still no definitive consensus among historians. I have an open mind on the subject.

Even if the sexuality of Cervantes is open to debate, that of the astrophysicist who led the campaign to have Mu Area named after him is not. His name is Javier Armentia (b.1962), and he is the Director of the Pamplona Planetarium in northern Spain. He is also a leading populariser of science, a broadcaster, and a member of 500 Queer Scientists.

The campaign to name Mu Arae (which will also retain this scientific designation) after Cervantes was a joint venture between the Pamplona Planetarium, the Cervantes Institute, and the Spanish Astronomy Society. The campaign was called Estrella Cervantes.

Two events prompted the Estrella Cervantes campaign. First was the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) NameExoWorld project in 2015. This was aimed at encouraging public organisations to submit names for a selection of the many discovered exoplanets and their stars. The second was a double anniversary. The year 2015 was the 400th anniversary of the publication of the second part of Cervantes’ famous work “Don Quixote” (to give it its most common name), and it was also the approaching 400th anniversary of the death of Cervantes in 1616.

The Estrella Cervantes project appealed for support and votes. On 15th December 2015 the campaign was successful and the IAU officially announced that the star Mu Arae was to be given the name Cervantes. But that’s not all. We’re also talking about exoplanets. So what did the project proposed for the names of the four known planets orbiting Cervantes? They proposed names of characters from Cervantes’ work. Consequently, the IAU also officially announced that the names Dulcinea, Roxinante, Quijote and Sancho were to be given to the four planets.

There are many more stars and exoplanets that have been named over the past eight years. Many more are being discovered. A few years ago I wrote about three lgbt+ astronomers who are searching for them. Who knows what other famous lgbt+ names will end up out there in the future.

Extraordinary Life: The Japanese da Vinci - Part 2

After a really horrible first quarter of the year in which I have been battling illness, I really must apologise and catch up on my planned schedule. Last summer I wrote about the samurai who has been called the Japanese Leonardo da Vinci, Hiraga Gennai (1728-1870). The parallels between them aren’t exact but the sheer scope of Hiraga’s activity is more than enough to justify the comparison.

In that first article we left Hiraga relinquishing his feudal duties and abandoning any responsibilities to any feudal lord. He had the independence to pursue his own interests. A chronological survey of his life would see us jumping from one discipline to another. Individual surveys of each will reveal a better picture of Hiraga’s genius.

Let’s begin with the main focus of Part 1, which was Hiraga’s use of marketing. Product promotion isn’t something that was created in recent decades. The spread of the printing press across the globe from the 14th century helped to spread advertising and promotion more widely than any previous method. In Japan the development of printing during the first part of the Edo Period (1603-1868) saw a big increase in marketing, especially after paper prices began to drop.

The three main methods of advertising were product sponsorship of events, distribution of printed leaflets, and promotion of products during seasonal festivals. In fact, this is very much what we still see today. Hiraga used all of these methods. The third method was highlighted in Part 1 with his suggestion of promoting eels during the Midsummer Day of the Ox. This influenced others to sell their products and services in similar ways.

Among the other products Hiraga had a major hand in promoting was tooth powder, but he was also instrumental in the development of regional expositions of local products. He arranged several expositions from 1757, sending out invitations to potential exhibitors, writing and printing catalogues and promotional material and publicising them across a wide area. These expos increased national awareness in natural sciences such as pharmacology, agriculture and mining.

Hiraga’s interest in mining led to the setting up of several mining projects. Even though these eventually failed they did lead to the creation of the Arakawa River which greatly helped in the shipping of coal. One alarming mining project was finding a way to turn asbestos deposits into fire-resistant cloth.

Most of Hiraga’s accomplishments were influenced by his contact with Dutch merchants. The Dutch and Chinese were the only foreign merchants allowed into Japan and from them Hiraga learnt of the arts and sciences not known in Japan. Hiraga’s insatiable quest for knowledge drew him to the Dutch like a magnet. This made him a pioneer in Dutch studies in Japan, which is known as Rangaku.

Everything Hiraga learnt about European advances in science and technology came through observation and experimentation rather than formal tutoring. One of the devices he came across during his contact with Dutch merchants was a broken static electric generator. By disassembling it and working out how each part worked Hiraga managed to get the generator working again. It took him several years and the result caused a sensation. He gave public demonstrations of it working and gave electrotherapy to patients. Copies were made and other people began to use them in market places.

Another result of Hiraga’s contact with the Dutch was influenced by his knowledge of mineralogy and chemistry. As I mentioned above he developed mining techniques and he located a particularly good source of clay for producing high quality pottery. He persuaded the government to help him set up kilns and workshops, aimed at reducing the reliance on obtaining pottery from China or Holland. With influences from Dutch pottery Hiraga developed a new style that combined both Dutch and Japanese elements. This style became very popular and is now named after him – Gennai ware.

Hiraga’s knowledge of geology also led him to investigate the use of minerals in the production of paints and dyes. You’ll not be surprised to learn that Hiraga was an accomplished painter. Unfortunately, very little of his work survives, and there’s only one of his oil paintings known to exist today.

If you’ve read Part 1 of this Extraordinary Life you’ll probably be intrigued by a particular comment I made and are eager to know more. It was about Hiraga writing a book about farting whose title translates into English as “The Theory of Farting”. The title makes it sound like the book is a serious study of the subject, but is actually a satirical novel (Hiraga loved writing satire, which was a popular genre in his lifetime). The “Theory” is more of a discussion than a novel, not unlike ancient Greek philosophical works. The author describes his encounter with a street performer who could fart tunes and animal noises. A fellow spectator is appalled at the performance but the author goes into a speech on how farting is superior to any other art form. The performer is self taught, not a product of a school where he was taught to copy previous artists using established instruments and techniques. Hiraga is taking a dig at the artistic establishment, even though he was part of it himself. It reminds me of a performer called Methane Man who had a similar farting act and appeared on “Britain’s Got Talent”.

Hiraga was not just a satirist. He could turn his hand to other literary forms. His pioneering use of marketing was utilised in the catalogues he wrote for his many trade expositions; he write scientific books; and he write poetry. Hiraga’s homosexuality played a role in other works, such as a guide book on male prostitutes and passages on gay sex in his novels. One of his novels I am really interested to read is “Furyu shidoken”, Hiraga’s version of “Gulliver’s Travel”. The stories are not exact in content because it’s unlikely that Hiraga had actually seen a copy of “Gulliver’s Travels”. He may have heard snippets about the novel from his Dutch contacts and used these as inspiration for his own novel.

With the extraordinary variety of disciplines Hiraga Gennai took up it is highly appropriate to compare him with Leonado da Vinci. However, unlike da Vinci, Hiraga’s life ended on a down note. Several accounts of his final year vary in the detail but agree on the final outcome. In 1779 Hiraga was arrested for murder (of a carpenter or one of his disciples). Hiraga was imprisoned and died in jail at the end of the year.

Many scholarly works on Hiraga Gennai repeat the word “extraordinary” when describing his works, deeds and legacy. Like so much of east Asian history, comparatively very little is known in the west. While Hiraga may be unknown to the majority outside Japan in his native country, even in modern anime, his name is well known and familiar.

A Star-Gayzing Cenotaph

On this day in 1727 (in the Julian calendar that was in use in England at that time) Sir Isaac Newton died. Some of you, like myself, may have seen his tomb in Westminster Abbey, London, but if a French architect called Étienne-Louis Boullée (1728-1799) had got his way Newton would also be commemorated in a colossal 150 meter (492 feet) diameter spherical cenotaph in Paris. I’m glad I haven’t decided to publish this article tomorrow, April Fool’s Day, because you’d probably think it was a hoax.

First of all, let’s get Newton’s sexuality out of the way. In 2013 I wrote about Newton’s probable place on the lgbt spectrum (very apt description bearing in mind his work on the spectrum and rainbows). Very little information is available to say for sure how Newton would have identified his sexuality, assuming he ever thought about it. Thinking about it and labelling it seems to be a very modern thing to do. In 2013 I was content, and still am, to place him in our modern “queer” category without putting any other modern gender or sexuality label upon him. No doubt historians and scientists will be debating the subject for centuries.

As far as Newton’s scientific reputation is concerned there is no doubt. He was hailed as a champion of reason over superstition, which is ironic because he believed in astrology and witchcraft (not the modern Wiccan faith which didn’t exist in his day). After his death many architects and artists began designing tombs and monuments for him. Only Westminster Abbey was deemed appropriate for his official state tomb.

The Westminster tomb and the other un-built monuments emphasised Newton’s contribution to science, which was invariably illustrated with images of ancient Greek gods and religious symbolism. The colossal design by Étienne-Louis Boullée in 1784 did away with most of this un-scientific and superstitious decoration (except for thousands of cypress trees, symbols of mourning in the ancient Greek religion). The design used simple shapes, primarily the sphere. Below is one of Boullée’s drawings.

In the words of Dr. Patricia Ricci, Associate Professor of the History of Art and Director of the Department of Fine Art at Elizabethtown College, Pennsylvania, “Its controversial theme, enormous size, and innovative design doomed the project from the start.” If it had been built it would have been the tallest building in the world at 150 meters (480 feet) tall, about 8 meters (26 feet) taller than the then record holder, Strasbourg cathedral.

The main feature of the cenotaph was the 150 meter sphere. Visitors would have entered the building at ground level and walk up a large staircase into a tunnel that led right into the centre of the structure. There visitors would be surrounded by the huge hollow interior. If visiting during the daytime people would see the whole surface of the sphere around them display an accurate portrayal of the stars and constellations. This was achieved by each star being a hole in the sphere where sunlight shone through. At night-time the interior was lit by a huge lantern inside an armillary sphere at the very centre.

You could say that this cenotaph was the largest planetarium ever designed, though no planets were represented within it and it was static. Speaking of planetaria, even though Boullée’s design never got off the page it inspired the design of a real modern-day planetarium, the Hayden Planetarium at the Rose Center for Earth and Space in New York, part of the American Museum of Natural History. The Hayden Planetarium was built in 2000 and is 27 meters (87 feet) high.

The Hayden Planetarium

Even it we cannot say exactly if Sir Isaac Newton would identify himself on the lgbt spectrum, his unbuilt cenotaph has indirect links to modern lgbt astronomers thought the Hayden Planetarium. The Associate Director is Brian Abbott who does talks and presentations there. The planetarium currently has a writer-in-residence, the gay British playwright Stephen Laughton. He is working with Dr. Rebecca Oppenheimer, Curator of the Department of Astrophysics at the American Museum of Natural History, a planet-hunter and discoverer of the first brown dwarf star. They are researching and collaborating in the development of a new play.

Finally, if Boullée had been able to build Newton’s cenotaph it may have been located where the Eiffel Tower is today. Below is an artist’s impression of how it would look if you could visit it.

I’m going to have a few days break for the Easter holidays. I’ll be back on April 10th when we’ll be looking at how a floral headdress inspired Napoleon and the art deco movement.

80 More Gays Around the World: Part 26) Homes Destroyed, Homes Discovered

Last time on “80 More Gays”: The true gender of 71) Dr. James Barry (c.1795-1865) was a secret known to few in his lifetime, including a South American independence fighter who was a compatriot of 71) Carlos de Montúfar (1780-1816) and Simon Bolivar after whom Bolivia is named, a country which attracted many German settlers and military advisors including, 73) Ernst Röhm (1887-1937) who was assassinated on evidence faked by an SS officer who was himself killed, leading to the Lidice Massacre memorialised by 74) Edna St. Vincent Millay (1892-1950).

The Lidice Massacre, ordered by Hitler in retaliation for the killing of the Protector of Nazi-occupied Bohemia and Moravia (the modern Czech Republic), shocked the world. Hitler believed the village of Lidice, 14 miles from Prague, had harboured some of the assassins. He ordered the execution of every man in the village on 10th June 1942. The women were either sent to concentration camps or sent for “Germanisation”, and most of the children were “adopted” by SS officers. Children not accepted for adoption were killed. The village itself was razed to the ground, even the cemetery (the bodies were dug up and burned, the gravestones pulverised). Only one person survived, a man who was in prison for manslaughter. He was released in December 1942 and went home, only to find that the village, his family, friends and fellow villagers, had all gone. No-one had told him of the massacre.

The international response was quick and long-lasting. In Stoke-on-Trent, a town just a few miles down the river from where I live, the local doctor and future Member of Parliament began a fund-raising campaign to rebuild Lidice. In other countries towns added Lidice to their names, and various streets and memorials were named after it.

The world’s press covered the massacre extensively, and 74) Edna St. Vincent Millay wrote an article in The New York Times magazine. This inspired her to write a verse play called “Murder of Lidice”.

Before World War II Edna was an active pacifist and in 1919 she wrote “Aria de Capo”, an anti-war play. From 1940 she began writing poems for the Writer’s War Board and openly supported the Allied Forces. This caused her reputation to tarnish a little, at least with the critics who saw Edna’s war writings as too political.

Edna’s writing career began when her mother persuaded her to enter a poetry contest in “The Lyric Year” magazine in 1912. Edna’s poem came fourth though many people, including the contest’s winner, thought it should have come first. The controversy led to Edna’s introduction to New York literary circles and a scholarship to Vassar College.

From then on Edna’s poetry and plays became popular and she won the Pulitzer Prize for Poetry in 1923. It was at this time that she entered into a loving, open marriage with Eugen Jan Boissevain (1880-1949) and they lived together until his death. Edna died the following year.

The couple moved into a house in New York, number 75½ Bedford Street (pictured below), said to be the narrowest house in the city, being only 9½ feet wide (3 meters). Its narrowness results from it originally being a carriage entrance between two buildings. Edna and Jan only lived there a year. Many others have occupied the narrow house at various times, including 75) Margaret Mead (1901-1978).

Margaret Mead was a leading anthropologist of her generation. I wrote about a book she and her partner wrote in 1977 called “An Interview with Santa Claus”. This is an example of how she helped to popularise anthropology among the public. Santa Claus? Anthropology? Yes, because Margaret used her knowledge of culture and history to give an explanation for the evolution of this Christmas icon in a way that children could understand without destroying the seasonal magic.

The field of anthropology goes hand in hand with archaeology. Through archaeology ancient communities are revealed and their ways of life are revealed through anthropology. The growth of interest in gender and sexuality in non-Western cultures was pioneered by Margaret Mead. She was a panellist at the first meeting to discuss homosexuality in anthropology called by the American Anthropological Association in 1974. Since then there has been a growth in queer anthropology and queer archaeology.

In April 2013 I chose archaeology for my “Ology of the Month” in a year where I wrote many science-based articles. Have a look at them. I wrote about several queer discoveries and lgbt archaeologists including the discovery of the most northern civilisation near the North Pole by a gay Danish archaeologist. I’ve also written since then about other queer archaeologists and anthropologists and their historic discoveries, like the discovery of a whole new humanoid species and the discovery of Europe’s oldest known urban community. I’ve even written about Lawrence of Arabia’s contribution to archaeology.

One of those 2013 articles for my Ology of the Month was about Mayan cave paintings and their sexual nature. Studies into Mayan gender and culture have been continued by other archaeologists and anthropologists like 76) Chelsea Blackmore.

Next time on “80 More Gays”: From the jungles of Central America and the deserts of South Africa we are guided to the snows of Canada.

Star-Gayzing: Thrilled

In June I was contacted by Ruth Anderson, a staff writer at Thrillist, the culture and lifestyle website, about my Star-Gayzing articles. Ruth was writing an article for Thrillist about the relationship between the lgbt community and the cosmos. She was “absolutely fascinated” by my posts and asked if I could help with providing some insight into my relationship to astronomy. I was asked how I became interested in astronomy, what lgbt figures have influenced science, and what facts I would like to share.

What resulted was this article.

Whenever I’m asked to provide information I make sure I give more than may be required. It all depends on what the article’s writer needs and what their angle on the subject happens to be. Providing too much is better than providing too little is what I always say. I was delighted with the article and thank Ruth for the opportunity to tell people about myself.

What follows is the information I provided to Ruth, with a few additions. You can find many of the people mentioned below on this blog – put the name in the search box.

I was fortunate to be raised in a rural village where there was virtually no light pollution and my family often went outside in the winter evenings to look at the stars. I remember us all going out to look at Halley’s Comet when I came around last time. Unfortunately, I now live in Nottingham city centre and see very little, and didn’t get to see Comet NEOWISE this summer.

Stargazing with my family got me interested in the planets and from there I became interested in the asteroids. I remember copying out a list of asteroids from an encyclopedia when I was about 8. I was also fascinated by the stories and legends behind the planets and constellations and that got me interested in Greek and Roman mythology.

Most modern lgbt scientists work with many non-lgbt colleagues and their work is often a team effort. In the past scientists tended to work alone and, as with every other scientist that came up with a new theory, were often met with opposition or even ridicule from fellow scientists.

Perhaps the earliest example is Parmenides of Elea from the 5th century BC. He was the first to suggest that space was infinite and not the inside of a crystal sphere with stars attached to it. He also suggested that the Earth was spherical (Pythagoras is often claimed to be the first to suggest this but there’s no real evidence he did). Nobody took Parmenides seriously. Both of his theories were championed after his death by his former boy-lover Zeno of Elea.

Many centuries later Giordano Bruno (1548-1600), ex-priest, mathematician and spy (under the code-name Henri Fagot), expanded Parmenides theory by saying that in an infinite universe there’s an infinite number of planets inhabited by humans. Bruno was executed for heresy. Anti-Christian propaganda claims this is proof of the Church’s opposition to science and its homophobia, but Bruno wasn’t executed because of his science or sexuality. The Church accepted the existence of infinite space and planets. Bruno was executed because he said that these planets meant there was an infinite number of Christs, and the Church taught that there was only one. Effectively, the Church said that inhabitants of other planets are not human, which is just what scientists began to say 300 years after them.

The famous Copernicus didn’t believe in an infinite universe. He still believed that the stars were attached to spheres like everyone else. His theory of a Sun-centred solar system wasn’t new, he just used more maths to perfect the model, and he didn’t think scientists would be interested in reading about something they already knew. However, his protégé, Georg Joachim Rheticus (1514-1574), a professor who made my life hell by developing trigonometry, disagreed. After being sentenced to exile from Leipzig for having sex with a male student Rheticus visited Copernicus. He persuaded Copernicus to publish his work, otherwise nobody would ever have heard of Copernicus.

There’s an interesting side-story to Copernicus. Someone once discussed Copernicus with the gay philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein (1889-1951). The person mocked the people of Copernicus’s time for believing that the Sun went around the Earth, to which Wittgenstein replied “Yes, but what would it have looked like if the Sun DID go round the Earth?” His point being that it would look exactly the same. What people, and scientists, believed before the discovery of the movements of the planets around the Sun didn’t make them stupid.

Below are some discoveries made by lgbt scientists in astronomy. They may not be well-known but they are significant in the field of astronomy.

Sir Isaac Newton discovered gravity and the nature of rainbows.

Transgender astrophysicist Dr. Rebecca Oppenheimer discovered the first brown dwarf star.

Transgender astrophysicist Dr. Jessica Mink discovered the rings around the planet Uranus.

Dr. Martin Lo discovered the gravitational highways through the solar system that make the voyages of interplanetary probes and satellites quicker and shorter.

Sir Arthur Eddington proved Einstein’s theory that gravity bends light during a total eclipse in 1919.

Dr. Nergis Mavalvala proved Einstein’s theory of gravitational waves.

Dr. Franck Marchis and Dr. Mike Wong discovered the first double asteroid. Both have since discovered many other asteroids and even the first moons around asteroids.

Dr. James Pollack’s study of dust storms on Mars led to research into climate change on Earth. His team came up with the term “nuclear winter”.

Dr. Lisa Harvey Smith was the first lead scientist on the construction of the Square Kilometre Array telescope, which will be the largest Earth-bound international telescope array when completed.

Dr. Andrew Chael was one of the scientists who worked on the first photo of a black hole that was released last year.

Dr. Jeremy Bailin discovered that the warp of our Milky Way galaxy was caused by the gravitational pull of the Sagittarius Galaxy as it passed us billions of years ago.

Dr. Sally Ride was the first American woman in space, and the first of only two lgbt astronauts. She went on two shuttle missions and led the investigations into the two shuttle disasters.

In 132 the Roman Emperor Hadrian created a constellation in memory of his dead lover Antinous. After 1786 a constellation was created in memory of the gay German emperor Frederick the Great. Both constellations have since been split up and their stars reassigned to other constellations.

Thousands of asteroids and planetary features throughout the solar system have been named after members of the lgbt community, from craters on Mercury to mountains on Venus, and from asteroids to moons of Jupiter.

Many openly lgbt astronomers are involved in outreach work, popularising astronomy, and working in public planetaria. There is also an increasing number of openly lgbt students who are registering on lgbt science and university “out lists”, and there are many lgbt astronomy professors.

Several meteorites were worshipped as gods, and their priests were often third gender, intersex or eunuch. Perhaps the most famous third gender priests were the Three Wise Men or Three Kings who followed a star from the east in the Christmas story.

Speaking of Christmas, a Swedish theologian and historian called Nils Vilhelm Ljungberg (1818-1872) was the first to take an astronomical approach to calculating the year Christ was born. Using ancient chronologies, records of eclipses, and star and planetary charts he came up with the date of 1st October 7 BC. It’s the date that is still often quoted today.

Out Of This World: Asteroid Update

It’s been a while since I gave a list of asteroids (minor planets) named after members and allies of the lgbt community. So here’s a new selection. The number before each name is the official number designated to that asteroid. The explanation following each name is based on the citations given when the names were published, to which I’ve added information illustrating relevance to the lgbt community. The numerical order of asteroids is not necessarily the same order in which they were either discovered or named.

You may wonder why some asteroids are not named until many years after they were discovered. There’s several reasons for this. Once discovered an asteroid is given a reference number. No asteroid is named until it’s compete orbit has been calculated, and this may take some time because there may be very few observations on which to make an accurate calculation. The final number of the asteroids, the ones you see listed below, were assigned at the same time as their name. Many asteroids are only known by their number for several years until someone decides to give it a name. Some asteroids are named for a specific reasons, as in the case of the one named after Freddie Mercury below.

(65) Cybele

Discovered 8 March 1861.

Named after the Phrygian goddess Cybele shortly after its discovery. Early legends of Cybele relate how she was born intersex and had the name Agdistis. The gods feared this double-gendered deity and castrated her and thus she became Cybele. The asteroid was originally named Maximiliana after King Maximilian II of Bavaria (father of the gay King Ludwig II). At the time asteroids were given ancient classical names, and Maximiliana was regarded as non-classical and was changed to Cybele after protests from the most esteemed astronomers of the day.

 

(4544) Xanthus

Discovered 31 March 1989. Name published 27 June 1997.

Xanthus is one of the most obscure of the many Greek names of Apollo, the pansexual god of the Sun, archery, healing, prophecy and song. Xanthus means “the Fair”. This asteroid was given one of the names of Apollo because is a member of the Apollo group, asteroids whose orbits bring them close to Earth and may hit us. (4544) Xanthus last crossed our orbit on 12th August at the point where we will be on 30th November.

 

(6039) Parmenides

Discovered 3 September 1989. Name published 15 April 1995.

Named after Parmenides of Elea (late 5th century BC), a philosopher. In his lengthy poem “On Nature”, of which only a small part has been preserved, he considered the plurality of things as the appearance of only one eternal reality, whatever that means. He also suggested that the Earth was a sphere, an idea that found few supporters, except from his young protégé and lover Zeno. Parmenides and Zeno were spotted by Socrates as visitors to the Great Panathenaic Games.

 

(9014) Svyatorichter

Discovered 22 October 1985. Name published 26 July 2000.

Svyatoslav Teofilovich Richter (1915-1997) was a Russian pianist and People’s Artist of the USSR. Then, as now, Russia was homophobic, and though Richter was never openly gay his sexuality was an open secret in the Russian music world who recognised the string of male companions as his lovers.

 

(11964) Catullus

Discovered 12 August 1994. Name published 9 April 2009.

The Roman poet Gaius Valerius Catullus (84 BC–54 BC) still influences poetry and art to this day. His poem Carmina 16 is notorious for its explicitness. It is one of several poems he wrote which mentions a youth, or Juventius, who is widely regarded as being Catullus’s lover. Catullus also had a girlfriend called Lesbia.

 

(12607) Alcaeus

Discovered 24 September 1960. Name published 24 November 2007.

Alcaeus (c.620 BC-c.580 BC) was a Greek poet from the island of Lesbos. His songs are as famous as those of Sappho (who also has an asteroid named after her). Alcaeus was said to have been Sappho’s lover. He also wrote poems to several of his young male lovers, including Lycos and Menon.

 

(14505) Barentine

Discovered 12 January 1996, Name published 6 January 2007.

Named after Dr. John Caleb Barentine (b.1976) who served as an observing specialist at the Apache Point Observatory telescope from 2001 to 2006, and then as an observer for the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. Trained in stellar astronomy, he was introduced to planetary work by his colleagues Gil Esquerdo and Carol Neese, who suggested his name for this asteroid. Dr. Barentine is currently the Director of Conservation for the International Dark-Sky Association. He is also an author on the history of astronomy, and a member of the 500 Queer Scientists organisation.

 

(17473) Freddiemercury

Discovered 21 March 1991. Name published on 3 September 2016, the 70th anniversary of his birth.

Freddie Mercury (1946–1991) was a British songwriter and the lead singer for the legendary rock group Queen. His distinctive sound and large vocal range were hallmarks of his performance style, and he is regarded as one of the greatest rock singers of all time. The name was suggested by the provisional designation given to this asteroid before its full orbit was calculated – 1991 FM3. The letters FM inspired the choice of Freddie Mercury’s name; 1991, the year it was discovered, was the year Freddie died. Fellow Queen band member and astronomer Brian May and Dr. Joel Parker of the Southwest Research Institute in Boulder, Colorado, were instrumental in getting this asteroid named in time for Freddie’s 70th anniversary.

 

(36445) Smalley

Discovered 23 August 2000. Name published 21 September 2002.

Named after Kyle Smalley (1961-2018), a software developer, amateur astronomer and team member of the Powell Observatory Near-Earth-Object programme. She then went to work as a software developer at the Minor Planet Centre, the official body responsible for the cataloguing and naming of asteroids. It was while working there that she transitioned and lived as Sonia Keys.

 

(58196) Ashleyess

Discovered 10 March 1992. Name published 20 May 2008.

Ashley Caroline Steel (b.1959) is the sister of Daniel Steel who discovered this asteroid and has been very supportive of his career. Ashley was the vice-chair and global head of transport for KPMG, from which she retired in 2014. Currently she holds non-executive roles on the boards of National Express, GoCo and the BBC. She has been named one of the UK's most influential gay people and appeared on the annual “Pink List” published by The Independent newspaper for several consecutive years from 2006.

 

ASTEROID ALLIES

 

(4049) Noragal’

Discover 31 August 1973. Name published 17 March 1995.

Named after Eleonora Yakovlevna Gal'perina (1912-1992), literary critic and translator, well-known under the pseudonym Nora Gal' for her Russian translations of foreign works. She was the grandmother of gay poet Nikolai Kuzmin (b.1968).

 

(6692) Antonínholý

Discovered 18 April 1985. Name published 2 June 2015.

Dr. Antonín Holý (1936–2012) was a renowned Czech chemist who significantly contributed to the development of antiretroviral drugs used in the treatment of HIV and hepatitis B. He was the author of more than 400 scientific papers and was awarded with honorary degrees from several universities at home and abroad.

 

(19175) Peterpiot

Discovered 2 August 1991. Name published 8 October 2014.

Dr. Peter Piot (b.1949), a Belgian physician, co-discovered the ebola virus in Zaire in 1976. In addition to providing the foundations of our understanding of HIV infection, he is the author of 16 books and 500 scientific articles. He has been the director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine since 2010. He was created a baron by the King of Belgium and an Honorary Knight Commander of the Order of St. Michael and St. George by Queen Elizabeth II.

 

(52665) Brianmay

Discovered 30 January 1998, Name published 18 Jun 2008.

Brian May (b.1947) is lead guitarist and songwriter for the rock group Queen which featured Freddie Mercury (for whom Brian campaigned to have an asteroid named). In 2007 Brian received his Ph.D. in astrophysics from Imperial College London for a thesis on zodiacal dust. Eight months later he became Chancellor of Liverpool John Moores University. Brian is also the co-founder of Asteroid Day, the annual observance on June 30th to raise awareness of the possibility of an asteroid (such as Xanthus, one of the Apollo Group mentioned above) hitting Earth. In 2016 Brian May was named Celebrity Straight Ally at the British LGBT Awards. The name for this asteroid was suggested by legendary British astronomer and broadcaster Sir Patrick Moore.

 

 

Through all my “Asteroid Updates” I’ve not shown you where any of them are. You may have a vague idea of the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Most asteroids orbit there. Only very large telescopes can see them.

 

This illustration above shows the orbits of three of the asteroids I’ve listed today in relation to the orbits of the major planets of the inner solar system. The illustration isn’t exactly to scale (the Sun would be less than a pixel and not a yellow dot) but the general orbits are in their correct relative position, even down to the fact the Sun is off-centre.

 

Orbits of the planets are in grey except for the Earth, which is in red. The orbits of (65) Cybele, (4544) Xanthus and (17473) Freddiemercury are shown in different colours.

 

Cybele is one of the outermost asteroids in the main belt. There are many other asteroids that go beyond which we don’t need to concern ourselves about today. You can probably see that the orbit of Xanthus, as a member of the near-Earth-orbit asteroid of the Apollo group, crosses our orbit twice a year. Just like the asteroid Apollo itself Xanthus could hit us in the far and distant future.