Russian Amateur Astronomer Names Asteroids After Grandparents

On a Sunday evening in February 2026, Filipp Romanov spotted something NASA's automated systems had missed: a near-Earth asteroid zipping past our planet.

Working from his grandparents' coastal house in Yuzhno-Morskoy, Russia, Romanov was reviewing telescope images from La Palma in the Canary Islands when he noticed a faint object moving unusually fast across the frame. The asteroid, later designated 2026 CQ3, had passed within 8 million kilometers of Earth two days earlier.

This was Romanov's second near-Earth asteroid discovery. But what makes his work truly special isn't just what he finds in the sky—it's what he does with the names.

The International Astronomical Union allows discoverers to propose permanent names for asteroids. Most choose famous scientists or historical figures. Romanov has chosen differently.

He's named four asteroids after his four great-grandparents. None were famous. None were scientists. All would have been forgotten within a generation.

Asteroid 623826 Alekseyvarkin honors Aleksey Makarovich Varkin, who was wounded rescuing horses in World War II and raised three children alone after his pregnant wife died in a bus accident in 1962. Asteroid 679999 Mariyavarkina commemorates that wife, Mariya Maksimovna, who died at age 40.

Asteroid 623827 Nikandrilyich celebrates Nikandr Ilyich Romanov, a foreman and beekeeper who served in the military. Asteroid 679996 Mariyafilippovna honors Mariya Filippovna Romanova, a secretary who earned a Veteran of Labour medal.

Romanov doesn't own a massive telescope. He rents time on professional instruments around the world through remote-access programs, requesting images of sky patches the big automated surveys have recently covered or overlooked. He examines each frame by eye, searching for tiny moving dots the computers missed.

It's painstaking work that produces few discoveries compared to robotic surveys. But those discoveries are real, and they come with something priceless: the chance to write names in the permanent record of our solar system.

Why This Inspires

Romanov's great-grandparents lived ordinary lives filled with quiet courage. Aleksey rebuilt his family after tragedy. Nikandr kept bees as a hobby. Mariya typed letters at an office. These weren't the people we usually memorialize.

Now their names travel through space on rocks between 15 and 50 meters wide, officially catalogued by the world's astronomical authorities. Family stories that would have faded are now part of humanity's map of the cosmos.

Anyone with internet access and dedication can rent telescope time and search for asteroids, but it takes something else entirely to use that opportunity to say: these people mattered, and they deserve to be remembered.