Nile Rodgers gets asteroid named after him for his 70th birthday

Nile Rodgers has had an asteroid named after him to mark the occasion of his 70th birthday.

As Rolling Stone reports, Rodgers’ friend Simon Lowery, who works at the European Southern Observatory and is affiliated with the International Astronomical Union (IAU), arranged for the naming to happen, and it was revealed during a dinner celebrating the artist’s birthday earlier this month.

The Nilerodgers (191911) asteroid is said to be shaped like a potato, and is located around 300 million miles away from Earth. It just under six years for the asteroid to complete one full orbit. In the unlikely event that it would fall out of orbit, Lowery told Rolling Stone, it “would destroy Earth basically”.

The asteroid was first discovered in April 2005, and Lowery went through a formal process with the IAU to rename it for Rodgers’ birthday.

“Once you get past the gesture, you’re connected with the love that made it happen,” Rodgers said of the birthday gift. “It’s the love, the human emotions and feelings other people giving back to you, so for my entire life I will hopefully continue to give to others as best I can.”

Earlier this year, Nile Rodgers shared the backstory behind his hit single with Daft Punk, ‘Get Lucky’.

He and Roosevelt also teamed up to release a collaborative single on which they paid tribute to iconic New York venue Studio 54. The track, ‘Passion’, was released in May.