Asteroid named after Chinese scientist

BEIJING -- An asteroid has been named after Wu Rukang, a scientist known for his contributions to paleoanthropology, sources with the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS) said.

A ceremony was held in Beijing on Tuesday at the academy's Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology to officially announce the naming of Asteroid Wurukang, which was approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

According to an IAU communique, the asteroid, coded 317452, was discovered in 2010 by astronomers with the NEO Survey Program at the Purple Mountain Observatory in east China.

Wu Rukang, a CAS academician, was born in 1916 and died in 2006. A pioneer in Chinese physical anthropology and paleoanthropology, he established the new academic field of neo-anthropology.

Asteroids are the only celestial bodies that can be named by their discoverers. According to the CAS, a total of 16 asteroids have been named after Chinese scientists, with joint support from the Hong Kong-based Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation and the academy's Purple Mountain Observatory.