Wow! This is something that doesn’t happen every day!

My brother just had a “small planet” (asteroid) named after him! (I know I’m not supposed to overuse exclamation points, but I can’t help it.)

He earned this honor through his work on the New Horizons project—a NASA mission to study the dwarf planet Pluto, its moons, and other objects in the Kuiper Belt. 

I am thrilled to announce [drum roll, please] the minor planet: Danielkatz! 

I have a special appreciation of Pluto because many years ago, my first published short story (a big deal for a writer) was about an astronaut who crashed on Pluto. Here is a snippet from “Chrysalis.”

Eternity is subjective. I’m spending mine clawing into nitrogen-methane snow and dragging my body by painful centimeters from the ship’s wreckage. My helmet monitor lists internal bleeding, spinal injury, and two fractured ribs. Legs don’t work. Breathing hurts. Easier to just let the cold take me or for a piece of the ship to fall on my head and end it, but I’m a stubborn woman, as my father would attest . . . were he not three billion miles away.

Shallow gasps fracture the profound silence inside my helmet as I crawl through twisted metal toward the faint light, hoping the suit won’t tear on anything before I have a chance to see the stars again. Beneath me, the ground trembles. Is Pluto trying to live up to his ancient title as god of the underworld? 

Over the years, I’ve been obsessed with making sure I got the science in the story right. I sent it to Pluto expert, Marc Buie, who was kind and generous enough to read it and answer my questions. New revelations about the dwarf planet have been fast-incoming. They’ve included data and speculation from the New Horizons’ mission, which is still ongoing, long past it’s expected lifespan. The little-probe-that-could is now far beyond Pluto but still sending data about the Kuiper Belt, where giant asteroids that qualify as “small planets” orbit our sun!

Whoops, there I go with the exclamation points again. Can you handle one more?

Now, I need to put the small planet, Danielkatz, in a story! 

I write about what moves me, following a flight path of curiosity, reflection, and imagination. 

Feel free to explore my website, but if you arrived by way of my blog on Substack, here’s the way back.

If you arrived by way of “The Stiletto Gang,” a fun daily blog by mystery authors, here is your ticket there.