NvB: Bored in Brno?: Of Brno and Other Heavenly Bodies

Of Brno and Other Heavenly Bodies

That's right, somewhere out there, in space, there is an asteroid with Brno's name on it. OK, so I suppose that asteroids couldn't really be placed in the same category as all those other things in the heavens; after all, people didn't really notice them until 1801. Nonetheless something up there is named Brno. According to factbites.com, which is not always reliable but still interesting, no. 2889 Brno is a "small main belt asteroid, which was discovered by the Czech astronomer Antonín Mrkoš in 1981."

This means that in order to see Brno you just have to get out your telescope (asteroids are small) and look around the night sky. You may need a large telescope. In fact, you will probably need to build a giant radio telescope in the backyard since 2889 Brno will be virtually indistinguishable from thousands of other flying rocks somewhere in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. But you could try if you really want.

There are other asteroids with Czech names, too. For example, the Maccocha abyss in the Moravian Karst--the abyss is reportedly the deepest collapsed limestone dome in the world--also has an asteroid named after it. Then there is a Masaryk (named after the first president of Czechoslovakia), a Vltava (the river flowing through Prague), and a Československo (Czechoslovakia). Even folk music has its asteroid: one is named after the famous Romani violinist Jožka Kubík from the Moravian town Velká nad Veličkou. (The statue of Kubík in Velká is known as the only statue of a Roma in the entire Czech Republic.)

So if you want to be famous in the Czech Republic, be sure to get an asteroid named after you. And if you buy a ticket to Brno, be sure to specify, "the city, not the asteroid" or you might end up somewhere quite different than you expected.

Click here for more random information about Brno. Here for more asteroid info. Picture of 951 Gaspra from NASA.

Posted 10 January 2006 at 22:33.

The Blog

What is "Bored in Brno"? a) the best Czech movie of 2003, b) a blog about Brno (the Czech Republic's second largest city) and my adventures in and observations of south and east Moravia. I usually post about music, arts, culture, and stuff in Brno; or, I talk about whatever; or, I may bore you.

There's a Czech saying about how you are a new person for every language you learn. Here's your chance to experience Czech vicariously and to become your new self, now conveniently available in English translation. (Or at least something reasonably close to English.)

If you have questions, suggestions, like what you see, or you're just plain bored, don't hesitate to leave a comment or e-mail me.

The Blogger

A graduate student in music and anthropology writing a dissertation about music in Moravia, the eastern third of the Czech Republic. At some point, the Czech Republic's "second city" (that would be Brno) captured my attention, and I've since been blogging about events, arts, music, and other stuff—basically whatever interests me in and around the cityscape. I'm not living in Brno now, but I keep up with the cultural pulse from afar as best I can.

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