Asteroid 20596 = 1999 RX188 was named after CRC 1601-Project Leader Prof. Susanne Pfalzner by the Working Group for Small Body Nomenclature (WGSBN) of the International Astronomical Union (IAU).
Asteroid Pfalzner was discovered on September 9, 1999 at the Magdalena Ridge Observatory, located in Socorro County, New Mexico, USA, by the Lincoln Near-Earth Asteroid Research (LINEAR) project. It has a diameter of about 3.55km and is located in the main asteroid belt, a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars.
Susanne leads the Simulation and Data Lab Astronomy and Astrophysics at the JSC. To give an example of her extraordinary work, in 2024, her team and collaborators solved a cosmic mystery: Their HPC simulations revealed that the flyby of a star billions of years ago explains some dynamics of the solar system beyond Neptune. Apart from her work at JSC, she is an associate professor at the University of Cologne and performs research at the Max-Planck for Radioastronomy, Bonn.
Working Group of the IAU: https://www.wgsbn-iau.org/
WGSBN Bulletin 6, #11 Issued, including the new name of Asteroid Pfalzner: https://www.wgsbn-iau.org/files/Bulletins/V006/WGSBNBull_V006_011.pdf
NASA Orbit Viewer: https://ssd.jpl.nasa.gov/tools/sbdb_lookup.html#/?sstr=20596&view=VOPDCA
