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EARTHDATE: October 14, 2007

Official News page 11


REAL LIFE NEWS: GEORGE TAKEI THE ASTEROID

by Hazed

Speaking of seeking out new life, new civilizations... the actor George Takei, who played Sulu in the original Star Trek series (and more recently has played Hiro's dad in Heroes) has been immortalized by having an asteroid named after him. The rock previously known as "1994 GT9" is now officially called "7307 Takei". This is quite an honor: out of about 400,000 asteroids known to exist, only about 14,000 have been named after specific people.

"I am honored, indeed transported to the galaxies, to know that my name has been assigned to an astronomical object in our solar system," said Takei. "I am yet to come down to Earth."

George's new asteroid is about 5 miles in diameter, and it orbits in the mid-solar-system asteroid belt between 2.5 and 3.0 astronautical units from the sun. It was discovered in 1994 by two Japanese astronomers.


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