Asteroid San Diego

24 years ago this week the City of San Diego was honored for its efforts in helping to control light pollution. The honor came as an asteroid was named "as a celestial tribute to the City of San Diego in appreciation of the city's responsiveness and cooperation in the campaign to restore dark skies of astronomers probing the universe."

We hope that commitment will continue well into the future as new lighting technologies come into use. Preserving dark skies might help us to find any potential dangerous asteroids before they become a threat


Asteroid 3043 San Diego (the streak above) was discovered at Palomar by astronomer Eleanor Helin on September 30, 1982.

Speaking of dark skies, the effort continues in Borrego Springs to make it the next International Dark-Sky Community. Yesterday, Dennis Mammana, was on KPBS radio's These Days speaking about light pollution. You can listen to the archived version of the show here.