Caltech Names Asteroid In Honor of Walter Cronkite

PASADENA— It may not be the third rock from the sun, but 6318 Cronkite is now the asteroid named after the most famous broadcast journalist of the 20th century.

In commemoration of Walter Cronkite's campus appearance tonight, the California Institute of Technology will announce the official naming of an asteroid for the veteran newscaster. The asteroid, formerly known as 1990 WA, was discovered exactly six years ago tonight by Caltech/Jet Propulsion Laboratory planetary astronomer Eleanor F. Helin at Caltech's Palomar Observatory.

"This is a member of a class of asteroids that are normally named, by tradition, for gods or goddesses," says Helin, who earned the right to choose the asteroid's name when she discovered it on an 18-inch Schmidt camera at Palomar. "It is extremely rare that a near-Earth asteroid be named for a living person."

Cronkite, who doesn't yet know that the asteroid has been named in his honor, will present the first Lee A. DuBridge Distinguished Lecture tonight at Beckman Auditorium on campus. The event is titled "A Conversation with Walter Cronkite," and will be a one-on-one exchange with NBC 4 anchor Jess Marlow. Cronkite will answer questions from the audience afterward.

Helin, who has searched for near-Earth asteroids for 25 years, has been working to get the object's exact location tonight and to compile some other interesting facts. The next time the asteroid will be favorably placed in the northern hemisphere will be in December 1998.

She says that the asteroid is a special one because it comes within about 30 million miles of Earth. No one knows yet what it's made of, but the asteroid's orbit is well known — a necessary requirement for designating an asteroid with a number and name. Also, its orbit suggests that the object could be a degassed comet, Helin adds.

Roughly the size of Pike's Peak, or about two to three kilometers in diameter, the asteroid circles the sun every four years in an elliptical, highly inclined orbit that crosses Mars and approaches Earth's orbit. But most of all, Cronkite is noteworthy because it will someday become an Earth-crossing asteroid, Helin says.

"The possibility is, it may make a big impact in the far distant future," she says. "It does have that potential."

For the future, however, Cronkite will make no more of an impression than an occasional 30 million-mile approach. At those times, the asteroid will be detectable with a good amateur telescope.

Still, the irony is not lost on Caltech officials that an asteroid that could conceivably hit Earth someday is being named after "the most trusted man in America." Some even say that the irony is strangely appropriate.

"Walter Cronkite is one of the most elegant voices of the 20th century," one official said, "and it's been a chaotic century."

Contact: Robert Tindol (818) 395-3631 tindol@caltech.edu