Carl Gustav Witt (29 October 1866 – 3 January 1946) was a German

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

and discoverer of two

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

s who worked at the Berlin Urania Observatory, a popular observatory of the Urania astronomical association of Berlin. He wrote a doctoral thesis under the direction of

Julius Bauschinger Julius Bauschinger (January 28, 1860 – January 21, 1934) was a German astronomer. Biography Julius Bauschinger was born in Fürth, the son of the physicist Johann Bauschinger. He studied at the Universities of Munich and Berlin, graduating u ...

. Witt discovered two asteroids, most notably

433 Eros 433 Eros is a stony asteroid of the Amor group, and the first discovered, and second-largest near-Earth object. It has an elongated shape and a volume-equivalent diameter of approximately . Visited by the NEAR Shoemaker space probe in 1998, ...

, the first asteroid with a male name, and the first known

near-Earth object A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body orbiting the Sun whose closest approach to the Sun ( perihelion) is less than 1.3 times the Earth–Sun distance (astronomical unit, AU). This definition applies to the object's orbit a ...

. His first minor planet discovery was the main-belt asteroid

422 Berolina 422 Berolina is a typical Main belt asteroid. It was discovered by G. Witt on 8 October 1896 in Berlin. It was first of his two asteroid discoveries. The other was the famous asteroid 433 Eros. Although it has an orbit similar to the Flora fa ...

, that bears the Latin name of his adoptive city. The minor planet

2732 Witt 2732 Witt, provisional designation , is a bright asteroid and namesake of the Witt family located in the central regions of the asteroid belt, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 19 March 1926, by German astronomer Max Wolf at the H ...

– an

A-type asteroid A-type asteroids are relatively uncommon inner-belt asteroids that have a strong, broad 1 micrometre, μm olivine feature and a very reddish spectrum shortwards of 0.7 μm. They are thought to come from the completely differentiated Mantle (geo ...

from the

main-belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids ...

, discovered by

Max Wolf Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf (21 June 1863 – 3 October 1932) was a German astronomer and a pioneer in the field of astrophotography. He was the chairman of astronomy at the University of Heidelberg and director of the Heidelberg-K� ...

Heidelberg Observatory Heidelberg (; ; ) is the List of cities in Baden-Württemberg by population, fifth-largest city in the States of Germany, German state of Baden-Württemberg, and with a population of about 163,000, of which roughly a quarter consists of studen ...

in 1926 – was named in his memory by American astronomer and

MPC MPC, Mpc or mpc may refer to: Astronomy * Megaparsec (Mpc), unit of length used in astronomy * Minor Planet Center, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory ** ''Minor Planet Circulars'' (MPC, M.P.C. or MPCs), astronomical publication from the Minor ...

's longtime director, Brian G. Marsden. Naming citation was published on 22 September 1983 ().

References

1866 births 1946 deaths Discoverers of asteroids 20th-century German astronomers 19th-century German astronomers {{Germany-astronomer-stub