The fishing town of Grindavík, recently in global headlines due to volcanic eruptions, also has its name written across the cosmos. The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has officially approved the name Grindavík for an asteroid discovered in 1999, adding to the Martian crater that has borne the same name since 2006.
The newly named asteroid, 24090 Grindavík, was first spotted on October 29, 1999, by the Catalina Sky Survey in Arizona. At the time it was given the provisional designation 1999 UY8. Last August, the IAU confirmed Grindavík as its permanent name. According to Sævar Helgi Bragason of stjornufraedi.is, the discoverer of an asteroid has the privilege of proposing its name, and in this case, recent news coverage of Grindavík’s dramatic volcanic events appears to have inspired the choice.
Located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, 24090 Grindavík has an average distance of 345 million kilometers from the Sun, completes an orbit every 3.57 years, and is estimated to be about 3 kilometers across, composed of a mixture of rock and metals.
Grindavík’s cosmic connections extend further. On Mars, a 12-kilometer-wide crater also carries the town’s name. Identified in images taken by NASA’s Viking spacecraft, the crater was officially named by the IAU on September 14, 2006. Under IAU rules, craters smaller than 60 kilometers on Mars are named after towns with fewer than 100,000 inhabitants, making Grindavík a fitting candidate.
With its dramatic geology on Earth and now two celestial namesakes, Grindavík has secured a place not only in Icelandic history but also among the stars.
