Named in honor of Stuart J. Weidenschilling, research scientist at the Planetary Science Institute in Tucson. Weidenschilling is a noted expert in the study of the origin of the solar system, and his research has also included collisional evolution of minor planets. He and colleagues are conducting a program of “photometric geodesy” to model the shapes of large, rapidly rotating minor planets from extensive lightcurve observations. (M 12459) _ _.
Discovered on 15-10-1985 in Anderson Mesa by Bowell, E.