An asteroid was named after Wu Rukang, a paleoanthropology scientist, according to the Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS).

A ceremony was held in Beijing on July 14 at the academy's Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology to officially announce the naming of Asteroid Wu Rukang, which was approved by the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

According to an IAU communiqué, the asteroid, coded 317452, was discovered in 2010 by astronomers with the NEO Survey Program at the Purple Mountain Observatory in east China.

Wu, a CAS academician, died in 2006 at 90. A pioneer in Chinese physical anthropology and paleoanthropology, he established the academic field of neo-anthropology.

Asteroids are the only celestial bodies that can be named by their discoverers. According to the CAS, a total of 16 asteroids have been named after Chinese scientists, with joint support from the Hong Kong-based Ho Leung Ho Lee Foundation and the academy's Purple Mountain Observatory.