Next to the no-smoking-in-cars-with-children-present bill being pushed forward by a group of seventh grade students, writing about the asteroid North Dakota is probably the most fun thing I’ve covered this legislative session.

During the press conference, Vishnu Reddy, the UND graduate student who discovered the asteroid said only around a dozen states have asteroids named after them.  Some will never have asteroids named after them because the name has been used for an asteroid for a different reason.

Here is a clip from the Minot Daily News article:

BISMARCK – If you’re looking for North Dakota, you can find it somewhere between Mars and Jupiter.

That would be the asteroid North Dakota, not the state.

Gov. John Hoeven received a certificate naming the asteroid after North Dakota Tuesday during a press conference at the Capitol. He called it an “out-of-this-world honor.”

Vishnu Reddy, a graduate student at the University of North Dakota who discovered the asteroid in 2003, presented the certificate to Hoeven, saying that it has taken five years from the time it was discovered to name it.

The asteroid first had to be tracked to make sure it has an established orbit. Reddy then applied to the International Astronomical Union to name it. He said there were several rules about names that couldn’t be used because there can’t be any conflicts of interest.

Reddy chose to name the asteroid North Dakota after the state. He had to write a citation detailing why North Dakota would be a good name. Some of the attributes he listed included agriculture, energy resources and the hospitality of the people.

Read the entire thing here.