NASA and IAU named featured asteroid Donald Johanson after India's Narmada Valley

NASA, along with the International Astronomical Union (IAU), has officially named a feature on the asteroid Donald Johanson after India’s Narmada Valley. This decision follows the Lucy spacecraft’s flyby of the asteroid on 20 April 2025. The flyby served as a practice run before its main mission to Jupiter’s Trojan asteroids.

• The site of Palaeoanthropological significance

The Narmada feature commemorates India’s Narmada Valley, an area of great palaeoanthropological importance. Fossils of Homo erectus narmadensis were found there, marking a key moment in human evolutionary research.

Other parts of the asteroid were named after significant fossil and archaeological sites around the world. These include Afar Lobus (Ethiopia), Olduvai Lobus (Tanzania), Windover Collum (Florida, USA), and the smooth plains known as Hadar Regio (Ethiopia) and Minatogawa Regio (Japan). Each name emphasises humanity’s shared evolutionary history.

• When did this take place?

The names were approved in September 2025. These names symbolically link Earth’s fossil record with the solar system’s ancient building blocks. Asteroids such as Donald Johanson preserve early solar system material, just as fossil sites preserve evidence of early human life.

• A scientific vision towards the future

By connecting space exploration with anthropology, NASA and the IAU highlight the links between cosmic and human origins. The asteroid itself is named after Donald Johanson. He was the American palaeoanthropologist who discovered the famous fossil “Lucy” in Ethiopia in 1974. This effort reflects a broader scientific vision. Scientists can use this not only to study asteroids to understand planetary formation, but also to celebrate the shared story of life on Earth.