"Can You Say Misterrogers? Sure, I Knew You Could"

Fred Rogers - the man children watched and loved for years, whose television living room was a den of safety and learning, a place where everyone always took their shoes off - Fred Rogers is in Heaven now.

Officially.

The asteroid formerly knows as 26858, orbiting the sun between Mars and Jupiter has been renamed in honor of the gentle television giant. Rogers died in February at the age of 74.

"I doubt that there are many who have not been touched in some way by the life and work of Fred Rogers," said John G. Radzilowicz, director of the Henry Buhl Jr. Planetarium & Observatory at the Carnegie Science Center. The announcement was made there last week.

This isn't one of those vanity registrations you see advertised on television around the holidays. This comes straight from the International Astronomical Union. That organization names asteroids, comets and other spacial bodies - but only based on the votes of its members, as a recognition of merit.

Before his death, Rogers started a program at the Carnegie Science Center called, "The Sky Above Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood," designed to give preschoolers their first glimpse at the heavens. That show is now produced at 15 planetariums nationwide.

"Misterrogers" was originally discovered in 1993 by astronomer E.F. Helin at the Palomar Observatory (CA).

FMI: www.iau.org