Rock & Roll Minor Planets

A number of minor planets have been named in honor of contemporary musicians. Not all of these can be considered rock'n'rollers in the true sense of the term, but `Rock'n'Roll' in the title of this page is useful in indicating the contemporary nature of these artists. Classical composers have been honored with minor planets since the early 20th century, but contemporary musicians have been overlooked. In the past few years, this imbalance between classical and contemporary musicians has been addressed by a new generation of astronomers who wish to acknowledge the music that has influenced them.

You may freely create links from your pages to this page or the pages linked from this page. Please do not ask us to link from these pages to your off-site pages.

Read about how minor planets are named.

Ephemerides and orbital elements for these objects are available.

We would be interested in including pictures of the honorees on these pages. If you have an image that would be suitable, please contact us. You must own the copyright of any image offered for inclusion (i.e., you've taken it yourself) or the image must have been offered into the public domain by the photographer (do not assume that just because an image is on a webpage that it is in the public domain!). Images used will, of course, be properly credited.

We are also interested in providing images showing the motion of the above-mentioned minor planets. In order to be considered for inclusion in these page such images must have been measured and reported to us for astrometric purposes. If you think you can help, please contact the maintainer of this service.

An Award!

An earlier version of this page was featured as one of Yahoo's Picks of the Week for the week of 1996 Aug. 12

Unfortunately, the links from the Yahoo site to this page are now out-dated due to reconfigurations of the local network.