WHAT’S IN A NAME?

M.Z.

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS owes its name to two observatories that discovered it independently. The first, Purple Mountain Observatory (PMO), was founded in 1934 and is considered China’s first modern astronomical observatory. The name Tsuchinshan — traditionally used for comets discovered by PMO — is an older transliteration of Zijinshan, which is Chinese for “purple mountain.” The observatory’s historic location is atop a mountain in the heart of Nanjing, a city of nearly 10 million people. The Minor Planet Center’s code for the observatory is Nanking — the historic transliteration of Nanjing. But the bulk of PMO’s research is now conducted at several satellite observatories at more remote sites. The telescope that first detected Comet C/2023 A3 is a 1.2-meter Schmidt located in Xuyi County, roughly 30 miles (50 kilometers) northwest of…

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Astronomy (Digital) - 1 Issue, May 2025

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