The asteroid (32598) Vanialorenzi

The International Astronomical Union has recently named the asteroid (32598) Vanialorenzi = 2001 QN159. Vania Lorenzi is an astronomer at the Telescopio Nazionale Galileo (TNG) and a planetary scientist. The announcement was made during the Asteroids, Comets, Meteors (ACM) Conference in Flagstaff (AZ), USA. Lorenzi received the honor for her work on primitive surfaces, including trans-Neptunian objects and primitive collisional families. Her studies are principally based on ground-based (mainly with TNG) and space (JWST) visible and infrared spectroscopy.

Vania Lorenzi has a degree in astronomy from the University of Padua (Italy) and a PhD from the University of La Laguna (Tenerife, Spain). Since 2004 she is working at the TNG as a staff astronomer and for 5 year now she is the instrument scientist of NICS. “It was an unexpected honor and a great satisfaction to see my name in the list of the new named asteroids" says Dr.Lorenzi "I’m very grateful for this recognition to my work from the scientific community.”

(32598) Vanialorenzi is a main belt asteroid with a diameter of 5.214 km, an absolute magnitude of H=15.28, and an albedo of 0.071 (https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=32598).

Orbit of the (32598) Vanialorenzi asteorid. Credits: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

TWGSBN Bulletin Volume 3, #9.