NASA Pays Tribute to Sean Connery by Naming Asteroid after Him

NASA paid homage to the late actor by reminding viewers how he starred in the science fiction ‘Meteor’ in which he tried to save planet earth from an asteroid threat. 

They also stated that they’ve named asteroid 13070 after the legendary actor. 

Asteroid 13070 Seanconnery was first discovered on September 8 1991 by E.W. Elst. It is 1.764 km in diameter. 

On Monday NASA tweeted, “Sir Sean Connery starred in the movie “Meteor” where he led Nasa's efforts to defend Earth against an asteroid impact threat... decades before Nasa appointed its first Planetary Defense Officer!”

NASA also shared a video of the asteroid floating in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and wrote, “as cool as its namesake.”

The space agency had captured the Asteroid with its 1.5m survey telescope on Mt. Lemmon on April 4, 2020. 

Sir Thomas Sean Connery passed away in his sleep at the age of 90 in the Bahamas. He was unwell for a couple of days according to his son. 

The Scottish actor became the first actor to portray the fictional British secret agent. He starred in 7 bond movies between 1962 and 1983.

Some of his notable films include 'The Hunt for Red October', 'Highlander', 'Indiana Jones' and the Last Crusade', and 'The Rock.'

The senior actor whose career spanned over seven decades won an Oscar in 1988 for his role in ‘The Untouchables.’ 

Alex Salmond, the former first minister of Scotland described Sean as “the world's greatest Scot, the last of the real Hollywood stars, the definitive Bond.” 

He added: “Sean Connery was all of these things but much more. He was also a staunch patriot, a deep thinker and an outstanding human being.”