Date: Mon, 02 Mar 1998 10:04:00 +0100 (MET)
I would like to get all informations you have about asteroid B 612.
Many thanks in advance.

Emails like this are very common: some precise questions, serious ones, spamming also, and curious emails too.

Before searching the answer to this question in some data base - I mean what someone more serious than me would have done - I remembered having told recently about asteroid B 612 to Leïla (9 years old). No need to do some bibliographical researches, one author only wrote about this asteroid. The bibliographical reference (not that bad, compared to some scientific articles):
- Saint-Exupéry, A. de, 1946, Le Petit Prince, Gallimard ed.

Everybody knows this story: "This asteroid has only once been seen through the telescope. That was by a Turkish astronomer, in 1909. On making his discovery, the astronomer had presented it to the International Astronomical Congress, in a great demonstration. But he was in Turkish costume, and so nobody would believe what he said.
Grown-ups are like that...
Fortunately, however, for the reputation of Asteroid B-612, a Turkish dictator made a law that his subjects, under pain of death, should change to European costume. So in 1920 the astronomer gave his demonstration all over again, dressed with impressive style and elegance. And this time everybody accepted his report."
Antoine exagerates, of course; however, I know someone who was not dressed in Turkish costume, and who had an analogous problem...

When I told this story to another astronomer, he asked me seriously: "does this asteroid really exists?". What a strange question! The answer has already been given long ago by Antoine: "Just so, you might say to them: "The proof that the little prince existed is that he was charming, that he laughed, and that he was looking for a sheep. If anybody wants a sheep, that is a proof that he exists." And what good would it do to tell them that? They would shrug their shoulders, and treat you like a child. But if you said to them: "The planet he came from is Asteroid B-612," then they would be convinced, and leave you in peace from their questions."
This is however more complicated with astronomers. Concerning the naming conventions of asteroids, they will refer to Commission 5 of the International Astronomical Union. They know for sure that no asteroid has such a name. There is an asteroid named (612) Veronika, but it was discovered on october 8, 1909, by Kopff in Heidelberg. From Saint-Exupéry (1946) however, the asteroid B 612 should be present above the desert one year later. Thus the period would not fit, and after all Heidelberg is not that desert, and Kopff is not a turkish name...

In order to be sure, one could request observing time on a telescope, but I have good reasons to believe that it would not be attributed... We must forgive astronomers, they are grown-ups.
However they do their best to remember the secret of the fox: What is essential is invisible to the eye.... So that they observe stars in the infrared, the UV, the radio or X band...
I am not sure this is because of the fox. What I believe however is that, among those who remember having been a child, some astronomers ask themselves, while looking up at the sky, the question of so much importance: "Has the sheep eaten the flower, yes or no ?"