Every movie director who has an asteroid named after them
There are around a million asteroids that scientists know of hurtling around the infinite reaches of outer space. Still, only a minuscule fraction of that number has been named after a movie director. Of course, whenever one of the minor planetary objects that fails to reasonably qualify as either a true planet or a comet is discovered, the person who helmed a popular motion picture isn’t always going to be on the tip of the tongue of the people who decide to give them their names.
Michael Bay doesn’t even have one, and he directed Armageddon, which just goes to show that it has nothing to do with representing or misrepresenting hurtling space rocks on-screen. Wes Anderson doesn’t have one, either, and he literally wrote and directed Asteroid City, so the criteria remain down to personal preference above all else.
That being said, it shouldn’t come as a shock to discover that Star Trek creator Gene Roddenberry and Star Wars architect George Lucas each have one to call their very own, but on the other hand, so does television personality and comedian Dara Ó Briain. Space is a strange and unexplainable place at the best of times, something that evidently extends into the celebrities who get their name slapped on an asteroid.
According to the European Space Agency, asteroids are given numbers before being awarded a permanently fixed moniker. The astronomer who provides enough observations to calculate its orbit with the greatest degree of precision then gets the honour of selecting the name, which is fair enough when they were the person who technically discovered it.
An entirely apt methodology, then, but still one that’s conspired to lump Marilyn Monroe and Mark Knopfler together are two entirely unconnected public figures who each hold the distinction of having an asteroid christened in their nomenclature. The list of well-known directors to get in on the act is hardly a short one, and it even includes several prominent actors who’ve helmed at least one feature, if not more, including Tom Hanks, Leonard Nimoy, Alan Alda, Jodie Foster, and George Clooney among others.
In fact, it’s rarer for an industry professional who built their livelihood entirely on directing to be welcomed into the asteroid club. A-list superstars and icons from the Golden Age of Hollywood take up a great deal more room in the vast darkness with no comprehensible borders than those who drew the line at wielding a megaphone.
Still, that doesn’t make them any less deserving of the highly bespoke accolade, especially when almost all of them are capable of entering the unanswerable conversation to determine the single greatest director cinema has ever seen.
Asteroid’s named after directors:
- Alfred Hitchcock (7032 Hitchcock)
- Grigorij Richters (8664 Grigorijrichters)
- Hayao Miyazaki (8883 Miyazakihayao)
- Hideaki Anno (9081 Hideakianno)
- Terry Gilliam (9619 Terrygilliam)
- Terry Jones (9622 Terryjones)
- Stanley Kubrick (10221 Kubrick)
- Ingmar Bergman (10378 Ingmarbergman)
- Miloš Forman (11333 Forman)
- Karel Zeman (19291 Karelzeman)
- Steven Spielberg (25930 Speilberg)
- George Lucas (28600 George Lucas)
- Jiří Trnka (38461 Jiřítrnka)
- Ang Lee (64291 Anglee)
- Alejandro Jodorowsky (261690 Jodorowsky)
- David Lynch (262876 Davidlynch)
- Christopher Nolan (56034 Chrisnolan)
