It's a weird and wonderful world up there in space, where Mother Teresa hangs out with Beethoven, Elvis and James Bond. No, we're not talking about some fantasy land, we're talking about asteroids.
Any asteroids that come within 108 million miles of the us are designated 'near-Earth' asteroids and are given majestic names based in mythology. Rules set by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), which is also in charge of naming moons, comets and anything else flying around our solar system, are in place for a very specific reason.
The reason behind the mythological names is to avoid the unlikely, but potentially awkward situation where an asteroid named in honour of a real person could make headlines if it were to wreak havoc on Earth. But a bit further out, in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, things get a little stranger...
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When it comes to naming asteroids, it's a case of finders namers, as whoever discovers it gets dibs on picking a name. In order to be named, scientists have to observe it for long enough to deem its orbit accurate, before it's then given a permanent number and is eligible for a name to be added - for example (88705) Potato, yes as in mashed potato.
Thanks to advances in technology, thousands of new asteroids and other minor planets are being discovered every year. These can range in size from less than a metre to hundreds of miles in diameter.
As of October 5, just 24,447 of the 629,008 numbered asteroids discovered have been named, according to Gareth Williams, secretary of the IAU's working group on Small Bodies Nomenclature. The group votes on potential names put forward for new asteroids, comets and minor planets, approving a few dozen at a time.
Often, those who discover the asteroids will use the opportunity to name them to honour colleagues and those close to them - hence why there are numerous named after astronomers' children. It means that most asteroids have names that wouldn't mean much to the average person, but as technology advances and more are being discovered needing names, scientists began to get creative.
Mr Williams was a young astronomer when he had the opportunity to suggest names for four consecutively numbered and nameless asteroids that had been discovered. So what amazing, creative idea did he come up with? The Beatles, of course.
"I noticed that Mozart and Beethoven had had asteroids, but there didn't seem to be any contemporary musicians," he explained. "And I thought, well, okay, let's try this out. If we can't get the Beatles through, then there's no point in trying anybody else."
The nameless asteroids had been discovered in the 1980s, and Mr Williams approached the discoverers with his idea. Since 1990, Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr have been up in the skies orbiting in the asteroid belt.
There's also an asteroid called Lucy, named after the early hominid who lived around 3.2 million years ago and was then, in turn, named for the Beatles song 'Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds', and of course, Yoko Ono is up there too. The one concrete rule of naming an asteroid, though, is you can't name it after yourself.
Many of us will have seen the adverts for companies that will name a star for your love or someone special. However, you can't actually buy the naming rights to an asteroid, star or any other space rock. So forking out for this lavish gift may seem romantic, but ultimately, it's pointless.
The name becomes official when the IAU's working group publishes it in a bulletin, among those approved at the start of October were a nurse in Tuscon and actress Jennifer Lawrence. But these people may not even know they have a floating space rock named after them.
Neither the IAU or it's Minor Planet Center (MPC), which maintains the official database, notifies those who have been honoured with sharing their name with the asteroid, that responsibility falls with whoever proposes the name. Sometimes, it can be an incredibly special moment when the honour is revealed.
That was exactly the case for Dan Green, who directs the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams. In 1978 he was a 20-year-old intern working for the MPC when his mentors surprised him with the gift.
"I came and worked for a summer for them almost for free, and I worked like 100 hours a week because I was trying to impress them," he recalled. At the end of the summer, MPC Director at the time Brian Marsden invited Mr Green to dinner at his house. He then took a rock off his mantel and put it in Mr Green's lap.
"It's not the real thing, but it's symbolic," Mr Green recalled Mr Marsden saying. "We just named a minor planet for you."
However, it's not quite so easy to place a rock in the lap of a celebrity to let them know they've had an asteroid named after them. Planetary scientist Carrie Nugent named an asteroid after Dolly Parton last year.
"It is a difficult thing to tell someone you've named an asteroid after them because it's so out of left field that people don't believe you," she said. "And I have nothing but sympathy. It sounds very weird."
Ms Nugent has named more than a dozen asteroids after people, including labour leader and civil rights activist Cesar Chavez. She said she sent a "formal as possible" letter to a link for fan mail on Dolly Parton's website but never heard back. Sometimes, though, celebrities do find out.
That's exactly what happened with Vangelis, the single-named composer who created scores for the iconic films 'Chariots of Fire' and 'Blade Runner'. His representatives were flicking through a magazine at London Heathrow Airport when they came across the news an asteroid had been named after them. So they let him know and he wanted to meet the person who had named it. That person just so happened to be Mr Williams, who was flown to Greece twice by Vangelis for a visit.
There are a couple of rules, more for efficiency than anything else, when it comes to naming an asteroid. No more than 16 characters, no spaces of numbers though this is a relatively recent change so while James Bond has a space, Jimihendrix doesn't. Then there are rules to avoid controversy - no religious figures, and no politicians unless they've been dead for at least 100 years.
However, there is an exception to this. Democratic Representative for New York Alexandria Ocfasio-Cortez has an asteroid named after her. But this was done before she ran for office, in fact, she was in high school when the MIT Lincoln Library named an asteroid for her after her research placed second in the prestigious 2007 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.
Names of pet animals are also "discouraged", according to the IAU. The rule was introduced in 1985 after scientist James Gibson sparked controversy by naming an asteroid he had discovered after his pointy-eared tabby cat, Mr Spock.
So while Spock may actually be a cat in space, other science and spaced-themed TV shows and films are, of course, well represented. There's Skywalker for Luke and Anakin, Sheldoncooper and fellow cast members from The Big Bang Theory, as do the Star Trek stars Leonard Nimoy, William Shatner, Nichelle Nichols and George Takei.
But what if minds, or opinions, change? Well, it's a pretty high bar to rename an asteroid. 'Supported a genocide' will see the name stripped, but 'cheated in sport' doesn't quite cut it. That's why asteroid Lancearmstrong has kept the disgraced cyclists name, but two craters on the moon were renamed when the IAU learned their German scientists' namesakes were affiliated with the Nazi Party in 2020.
"Pretty much once something is named, it doesn't get changed," explained Mr Green, who is on the panel that vets minor planet names. "We try to nip things in the bud ahead of time."
Mr WIlliams estimated that around two to three per cent of opposed names that get to the voting stage are rejected. Most commonly it's for coming too close to commercialisation, as brand names are banned.
There has also been a big push in recent years for more representation of women and people of colour. For around 150 years, all near-Earth asteroids were given male names, while anything out in the asteroid belt was given a female name - even if it was named after a male, so Wolfgang Amaddeus's asteroid is Mozartia not Mozart.
That practice stopped in the 1950s, and while there are more females honoured with asteroids, the list is still short on women and people of colour. It's a reflection of the profession, as planetary science has historically been an overwhelmingly white, male, space. But things are changing, in 2014 an asteroid was named Malala after human rights activist Malala Yousafzai, who won the Nobel Peace Prize at just 17.
"It's a small thing," said planetary astronomer Amy Mainzer, who has found thousands of asteroids. "But at the same time, names are important. They reflect what's important in our culture, and who's important in our culture."