Kelowna astronomer has ‘flying mountain’ named after her

Some people have their legacy enshrined in a street name. Others, a bench, or an arena.

But never in a billion years did one local amateur astronomer think she’d have an asteroid named after her.

But now she does.

Colleen O’Hare is the Kelowna outreach coordinator for the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Okanagan Centre, who nominated her to the Paris-based International Astronomical Union (IAU).

“They gave me an asteroid, a flying mountain,” O’Hare told Kelowna10. “I feel so honoured and so thankful for the club because they’ve let me do all of the stuff that has given me this great honour.”

The 11-kilometre wide asteroid, previously known as 10096, has been renamed to Colleenohare and it’s around 250 million kilometres from the Earth, between Mars and Jupiter. It was discovered in 1991 by Henry E. Holt.

It takes a little over five years for her asteroid to go around the sun.

“I don’t think I can see it with my telescope, but the club has bigger telescopes, and some members are going to try and see it,” she explained. “It’ll only be a little spot that over a few days might move a bit, so hopefully we can get a picture of it.”

O’Hare joined the astronomy club in 2004 after seeing an ad welcoming people to come to a meeting. She said she thought she knew a lot about astronomy until she went to the meeting.

“I realized I really knew nothing about it, but I also realized that I need to know everything about it,” she explained.

Ever since, she’s worked effortlessly to share her passion with others.

IAU recognized her for her outreach and volunteer work with the club, helping Okanagan residents learn about space through 100s of annual events, and by leading efforts to establish the Okanagan Observatory’s SkyTheatre in 2008.

The observatory is just off Big White Road and has been closed for the past couple years due to the pandemic, but O’Hare hopes it will open again this May for public viewings.

“We have a telescope up there that has a 63-inch mirror. It’s the largest amateur telescope in B.C.,” she explained. “We can see halfway across the universe with it.”

O’Hare has a kids club newsletter where she teaches children about what they can see in the night sky. They can also learn some simple physics relating to astronomy.

“I’m hoping that’ll trigger something in them so that they’ll follow it throughout their life,” she said.

“Astronomy goes from string theory, so the very tiniest bits of matter, all the way to cosmology, the beginning, and the evolution of, the universe … There’s something in it for everyone.”