A newly discovered asteroid has been named Tsou after Taiwan's aboriginal Tsou tribe. It is the first asteroid to be named after an indigenous people group from Taiwan.
An asteroid that was discovered by astronomers working together from both sides of the Taiwan Strait in 2006 and named after the Aboriginal Tsou tribe has been recognised by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), an academic source said on Thursday. An IAU commission in charge of naming comets and minor planets recognised the newly discovered asteroid as "175586 = Tsou = 2006 TU106" on Dec. 12 last year, making it the first asteroid to be named after an indigenous Taiwanese tribe, said Yeh Yung-heng, vice president of National Central University (NCU) in Chongli.