Brian Eno, the celebrated musician and producer, has been honored with an asteroid in his name this week.
The asteroid, 81948 (2000 OM69), was discovered by American astronomer Marc William Buie from the Southwest Research Institute. It has been renamed 'Brian Peter George St John le Baptiste de la Salle Eno', (his full name) or just Eno for short.
According to CNN, Buie described Eno as "an experimental sculptor of sound."
The producer has a keen interest in science, and this week he was awarded the Stephen Hawking Medal
at Starmus V, a festival of science communication and art in Zurich, Switzerland.
Eno, 71, received the award for his "contribution to the popularisation of science", alongside Elon Musk and Todd Douglas Miller's documentary film, Apollo 11, on June 24.
Known for his many contributions to the last few decades of rock, pop and experimental music, Eno reissued his Apollo: Atmospheres & Soundtracks in May this year, with the addition of 11 new tracks.
He started his career as part of the glam rock outfit Roxy Music, which formed in 1970, and quit after touring their second album. He went on to release the now-classic Here Come the Warm Jets (1974), an art-pop album with meditative piano-driven moments and free-associated lyrics.
Subsequent releases, like Another Green World and Ambient 1: Music for Airports, had Eno experimenting with minimal synthesizer arrangements and tape-looping. He's also produced albums by Talking Heads, Devo, John Cale, and the foundational no-wave compilation, No New York in 1978.
Incidentally, he also composed the the Windows 95 start-up sound, a roughly six-second musical jewel (one of 84 pieces he wrote). Ironically, it was created on a Mac.
