Minor planet named after Peter Barthel

On 28 April 2025 the Working Group Small Bodies Nomenclature (WGSBN), on behalf of the International Astronomical Union, announced that a new name for minor planet 20068 has been approved and it is now called Peterbarthel.

This minor planet was discovered in 1993 by E.W. Elst at La Silla observatory in Chili.

Peter Barthel is a Dutch astronomer who studies active galaxies. He is Professor Emeritus in Astrophysics at the University of Groningen, and is a former chair of the Royal Netherlands Astronomical Society.

Peter is a passionate science communicator, and was awarded the royal distinction of Knight in the Order of the Dutch Lion in 2015.

The two Nobel Prize winners Frits Zernike and Ben Feringa of the Faculty of Science and Engineering also had the honour of having a minor planet named after them, as well as some astronomers of the Kapteyn Astronomical Insitute, including its founder Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn (Kapteynia) and Adriaan Blaauw, and present members Jan Willem Pel, Tjeerd van Albada, Piet van der Kruit and Amina Helmi.