The planets in the solar system -- officially now reduced to eight -- are all, with the exception of Earth, named after Greek and Roman gods: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus and Neptune.
A chunk of rock and iron, however, circling the sun in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, is named for a more down-to-earth personage.
Asteroid 16037 has been christened "Sheehan" in honor of Dr. William Sheehan, a psychiatrist, writer and amateur astronomer who lives in Willmar. The name is officially registered with the International Astronomical Union, the world arbiter of things celestial.
Asteroid Sheehan was discovered on April 10, 1999, by observers at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Ariz., as part of the Near-Earth Object Search.
"It's very gratifying. It's sort of a little bit of immortality because this little bit of rubble is probably going to outlive me," Sheehan said. "It's a 4.5 billion-year-old piece of real estate."
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If it were to plummet to Earth, Sheehan the asteroid would reach from Willmar to Atwater. It's made up of iron and rock.
It circles the sun in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Astronomers believe these fragments represent leftovers from the formation of the solar system billions of years ago.
