Asteroid Murdin
Wednesday 10 October 2012
An asteroid discovered from Arizona in 2004 and catalogued as 128562, was named 'Murdin' by the International Astronomical Union this year.
This is in honour of Prof. Paul Murdin (father of Ben), who discovered the first stellar black hole in our galaxy. Paul said “It orbits between Mars and Jupiter, and, I am glad to say, is unlikely ever to crash into the Earth”.
That's asteroid Murdin in the centre. The TV view is a reflection off the polished face of an instrument on a telescope in Hawaii, with the dark band being the light that has entered the instrument for analysis.