AN ASTEROID CALLED MIORITA
By Andrei Dorian Gheorghe
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“A star fell
At my wedding party;
The Sun and the Moon
Carried my coronet (…)
And stars were torches!”
(“Miorita - The Little Ewe”, the Romanian national myth-ballad, Vasile Alecsandri version - fragment from the dialogue between the best shepherd and the magical Miorita)
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In 2024, the EURONEAR (EUROpean Near Earth Asteroids Research) team, led by Dr. Ovidiu Vaduvescu, proposed that Miorita become the name of a near-Earth asteroid that they discovered in 2014, and the International Astronomical Union accepted this proposal in August 2024.
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My friends, from now on an asteroid
Shines poetically through the void
Maybe not like a planet,
But at least like a comet.
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Probably, in the meantime, the shepherd from this myth-ballad, who compared his imminent death with a cosmic wedding, moved right on that asteroid.
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Very good things never really die
If they are connected to the sky!
#poetry