Asteroid 249516 Aretha, found by NASA’s NEOWISE mission and named after the Aretha Franklin to commemorate the ‘Queen of Soul’ will keep orbiting beyond Mars.
Aretha Franklin died last Thursday (16.08.2018), aged 76 years.
She won 17 Grammy Awards and influenced countless singers. She recorded such hits as “Respect”, “Chain of Fools” and “Think”.
She was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 2005.
The asteroid was first detected in 2001 and was designated as an asteroid in February 2010 by the NEOWISE project, according to NASA. The project officially named the space object after Franklin in 2014.
It measures just under three miles across and it orbits between Mars and Jupiter — one of hundreds of thousands currently traveling in that main asteroid belt, according to NASA’s count. It takes 249516 Aretha about five-and-a-half years to make one trip around the sun, according to The Atlantic.
As long as Aretha the asteroid doesn’t crash into another space object, she’ll be orbiting the sun forever.