On March 24, the naming ceremony of “Xida Star” (NWU Star) was held in Chang’an Campus of Northwest University.
At the ceremony, Shu Degan, academician of Chinese Academy of Sciences and professor of Department of Geology of Northwest University, read out the international naming bulletin of “Xida” star, and Wu Xuefeng, deputy director of Purple Mountain Observatory of Chinese Academy of Sciences, read out the naming certificate of “Xida” star and delivered a speech. Zhao Haibin, director of the Department of Planetary Science and Deep Space Exploration, gave a brief introduction to the discovery process of “Xida” star and related parameters. Wu Xuefeng presented the certificate and naming bulletin of “Xida” star to Northwest University, and Lai Shaocong and Zhang Yuanjun accepted the relevant materials on behalf of the university.
Asteroid “Xida”, number 529729, was discovered by the Purple Mountain Observatory in March 2008. Its orbital eccentricity is 0.049, its orbital inclination is 6.595 degrees, its orbital half-length is 3.044 astronomical units, and it travels at a high speed of 1.47 million kilometers per day in orbit, with a maximum distance of 627 million kilometers from Earth and a closest distance of 283 million kilometers. In September 2022, the Working Group on the Naming of Small Bodies officially approved the designation of asteroid 529729 as the star “Xida”.
