posted 09-25-2018 11:41 AM               

During his service at NASA that spanned more than four decades, Young left a lasting impact on everyone he encountered. One of these people is Rob Landis, an engineer in the Astromaterials Research and Exploration Science (ARES) division at NASA's Johnson Space Center, who was so moved by Young's contributions that he took it upon himself to ensure that an asteroid was named in his honor after he passed away on January 5, 2018 at the age of 87.

...Asteroid 5362 Johnyoung is located in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter and was discovered in 1978 during efforts to explore the path of Voyager-1. The asteroid, which was re-designated to honor Young after originally being named 1978 CH, completes one full rotation every 6.88 hours and a revolution around the sun every 6.23 years.

Above: NEOWISE image of 5362 Johnyoung. This "stacked" composite image was obtained while WISE was still in its prime cryogenic mission on 22 June 2010. The colors correspond to discrete wavelengths in the infrared (in microns).

The tracklet at the center of this image shows multiple detections of 5362 Johnyoung. The tracklets of other red dots are other asteroids. In visible light, asteroids are often rather dark; however, they are bright in the thermal infrared. Also in this image are stars towards the direction of the constellation Virgo and more distant galaxies.