Andrea Boattini

Andrea Boattini ( born September 16, 1969) is an Italian astronomer and asteroid explorer.

His main area of ​​research is the near-Earth asteroids, especially the Aten asteroids type. In 1996 he graduated from the University of Bologna with a thesis on near-Earth objects. After spending many years on the CNR and at the observatory in Rome, he currently works at the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory of the University of Arizona in Tucson. There he supported the work of the Catalina Sky Survey. He discovered the asteroid 2007 WD5, was to collide with Mars in January 2008, according to preliminary calculations.

He discovered from 1994 to date (Jan 2010) more than 200 asteroids, most of them along with other astronomers such as Luciano Tesi and Maura Tombelli.

He is also in the period from 2007 to 2010, the discoverer of comet C/2007 W1 as ( Boattini ), C/2008 J1 ( Boattini ), P/2008 O3 ( Boattini ), C/2008 S3 ( Boattini ), P/2008 T1 ( Boattini ), P/2008 Y1 ( Boattini ), P/2009 B1 ( Boattini ), C/2009 P2 ( Boattini ), P/2009 Q4 ( Boattini ), C/2009 W2 ( Boattini ), C/2010 F1 ( Boattini ) and C/2010 G1 ( Boattini ). His work for the Mount Lemmon Survey conducted on 7 October 2008 to the rediscovery of the periodic comets 206P/Barnard-Boattini.

Honors

In 2005 he received together with Luciano Tesi the meteorites d' oro.

The asteroid ( 8925 ) Boattini was named after him.

Source

• Lutz D. Schmadel: Dictionary of Minor Planet Names. 5th ed Springer, Berlin 2003, ISBN 3-540-00238-3 (English ) [ Preview from Google Book Search