20888 Siyueguo

Since the early 2000s, the MIT Lincoln Laboratory has partnered with Science for Society, the organization behind the International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), to name minor planets (aka asteroids) after award winning students, through the Ceres Connection Program. With fewer than 15 000 minor planets are named after people, this is quite an honour and one that I am happy to have received. 

In 2004, my project measuring conductance quantization in coinage metal wires (gold, silver, and copper) received a first prize award at ISEF in Portland, Oregon. Back then, as I remember, first and second prize winners would have their names sent to the Ceres Connection Program. And that's how minor planet 20888 got its name! 

20888 Siyueguo was discovered on Nov. 20, 2000, by MIT Lincoln Laboratory's Near-Earth Asteroid Research program. It resides in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter and NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has an entire page of data regarding its orbit and physical parameters (screenshot below)!  

I doubt that I can make use of any of this information, and I'm certain there are more rocks in the solar system than there are humans on Earth, but it's still nice to know that my name is associated with an extraterrestrial body.  

P.S. Contrary to popular belief, one cannot purchase naming rights to a minor planet.