Álvaro López-García facts for kids
| class="wikitable floatright" style="font-size: 0.9em; width: 270px;" |+ Minor planets discovered: 12 |- | see § List of discovered minor planets |
Álvaro López-García (1941-2019) was a Spanish astronomer. An astronomer is a scientist who studies stars, planets, and other objects in space. He was a professor of astronomy at the University of Valencia and led the Valencia University Observatory from 1968 to 2000.
Álvaro López-García was an expert in astrometry, which is the science of measuring the exact positions and movements of stars and other space objects. He also studied the way minor planets move. Minor planets are small rocky or icy objects that orbit the Sun, but are not big enough to be called planets. He discovered many of these minor planets starting in the early 1980s, working with another astronomer named Henri Debehogne.
Awards and Honors
Álvaro López-García was honored for his work! An asteroid, which is a type of minor planet, was named after him. This asteroid is called 4657 Lopez. It was discovered in 1979 by another astronomer, Nikolai Chernykh. Naming a space object after someone is a special way to recognize their important contributions to science.
Discoveries of Minor Planets
Álvaro López-García, often working with H. Debehogne, discovered a total of 12 minor planets. These discoveries helped scientists learn more about our solar system and the many small objects that orbit the Sun.
See Also
In Spanish: Álvaro López García para niños
- List of minor planet discoverers § A. Lopez-G.
