Asteroid Named After Hanna  

December 13, 2025

This year, planetary researcher Romy Hanna had an asteroid named in honor of her work on NASA’s OSIRIS-REx mission — the first U.S.-led mission to successfully return an asteroid sample to Earth. 

Hanna is a research associate in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences who studies the formation and evolution of carbonaceous meteorites and asteroids. She served as a participating scientist on the OSIRIS-REx mission to the carbonaceous asteroid Bennu, where she used the VISNIR and TIR spectral instruments to study the geologic history of the asteroid.  

The asteroid — named 41003 Romy — is 5.5 kilometers in diameter and located in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.