Artist's (my) impression of Asteroid 23238 Ocasio-Cortez

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, when elected, will probably become the first member of Congress with an asteroid named after her! Asteroid 23238 Ocasio-Cortez was discovered in Nov 2000 by the MIT/Lincoln Laboratory Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) Team in Socorro. The asteroid was named 23238 Ocasio-Cortez after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez won second place in the 2007 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair for her microbiology project.

x There is an asteroid named after Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. https://t.co/MC5ON45QMl pic.twitter.com/QDt7M4SN59 Ã¢ÂÂ John M. Cunningham (@jmcunning) June 27, 2018

x ItÃ¢ÂÂs true!



Science was my first passion. Asteroid named by @MITÃ¢ÂÂs Lincoln Laboratory in honor of longevity experiments I conducted out of Mt. Sinai.



My research won 2nd place globally in Microbiology at @intel ISEF. At BU I started as science major, changed to Econ Ã°ÂÂ¤Â#nerdalert https://t.co/MICD5me2Wm Ã¢ÂÂ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) June 12, 2018

I did not know that! Did you?

23238 Ocasio-Cortez

23238 Ocasio-Cortez is an asteroid in the main asteroid belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. Its current position is shown below. Its diameter is estimated at 2.322 km and its orbital period around the Sun is 3.86 years. For comparison, Mars takes about 1.888 years to orbit around the Sun, Jupiter takes 12 years.

23238 Ocasio-Cortez orbit and location today. ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/…

Saturn (not shown) is currently located along the Sun-Earth line; it appears high in the sky at midnight along with Mars.

The asteroid has not been imaged yet — it is too small and too far to be seen at high resolution and is not a threat to Earth — it is in a very stable orbit that does not come anywhere close to Earth. For comparison, here is an image of asteroid Ryugu, 1 km wide, taken from a distance of 40 km by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft, which just reached the asteroid after a 3 year journey.

x We have imaged asteroid Ryugu from a distance of about 40 km. Details of the asteroid surface are now clear, giving food for thought about the best locations for surface operations. https://t.co/y1gmpPYHbU pic.twitter.com/lEspwujMpp Ã¢ÂÂ HAYABUSA2@JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa) June 25, 2018

The Asteroid Belt

The main asteroid belt, located between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, contains more than 200 asteroids larger than 100 km in diameter, an estimated 1.1 million to 1.9 million asteroids larger than 1 km and millions of smaller ones. The total mass of the asteroid belt is approximately 4% that of the Moon. About half the mass is contained in the four largest asteroids - Ceres, Vesta, Pallas, and Hygiea.

The asteroid belt (white) and Jupiter's trojan asteroids (green)

Trojans share an orbit with a larger planet or moon, but do not collide with it because they orbit in one of the two Lagrangian points of stability L4 and L5, which lie 60° ahead of and behind the larger body.

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

From en.wikipedia.org/… —

Ocasio-Cortez was born in the Bronx, New York City. Her mother is from Puerto Rico and her father was born in the Bronx. She attended Yorktown High School from 2003 to 2007 and, while there, won second prize in the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, with a research project on microbiology. As a result, the Lincoln Laboratory at MIT named the small asteroid 23238 Ocasio-Cortez after her.

While a student at Boston University, Ocasio-Cortez was an intern in the immigration office of U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy.]

Ocasio-Cortez graduated from Boston University in 2011, where she started as a science major, but switched to economics and international relations. After college, she moved back to the Bronx and supported her mother by bartending at Flats Fix taqueria in Union Square, Manhattan, and working as a waitress. She was also employed as an educator in the nonprofit National Hispanic Institute. She worked as an organizer for Bernie Sanders in his 2016 presidential campaign.

Ocasio-Cortez the candidate

Here is her campaign video and a video of her victory speech -

x It's time for a New York that works for all of us.



On June 26th, we can make it happen - but only if we have the #CourageToChange.



It's time to get to work. Please retweet this video and sign up to knock doors + more at https://t.co/kacKFI9RtI to bring our movement to Congress. pic.twitter.com/aqKMjovEjZ Ã¢ÂÂ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (@Ocasio2018) May 30, 2018

x The only thing more uplifting than @Ocasio2018's victory was her victory speech pic.twitter.com/47Qd2pKi3N Ã¢ÂÂ NowThis (@nowthisnews) June 28, 2018

Ocasio-Ortez’s primary win is an earthshaking event; her win in November will feel like an asteroid hitting the GOP establishment. They are already gearing up to stop her using their regular arsenal of fear-mongering, vile epithets and the good-old bogey-word socialist. Let’s get behind our candidate (Asteroid) Alexandria Ocasio-Ortez.

Further Reading

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the 28-year-old who just defeated a powerful House Democrat, has an asteroid named after her — here's why — www.businessinsider.com/… ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/...