Mizusawa is asteroid #7530 and also known as 1994 GO1. Mizusawa was discovered by Endate Kin (円館 金) and Watanabe Kazurō (渡辺 和郎) at the Kitami Observatory. Mizusawa’s orbit is characterized by a semi-major axis of 2.62 Astronomical Units, an eccentricity of 0.17, a period of revolution of 1 553 days, and an inclination of 15.1 degrees.

Mizusawa is named in commemoration of the hundredth anniversary of the International Latitude Observatories at Mizusawa (水沢) City, Iwate District, Iwate Prefecture, Japan. So Mizusawa is actually named after the former municipality Mizusawa-shi (水沢市), which is now part of Ōshū-shi (奥州市). The city Ōshū (奥州) was formed in 2006 by merging the cities Esashi-shi (江刺市) and Mizusawa-shi (水沢市) with the towns Isawa-chō (胆沢町) and Maesawa-chō (前沢町) and with the village Koromogawa-mura (衣川村).

Mizusawa-shi (水沢市) was already created by merging Mizusawa Town with the villages Anetai, Shinjo, Sakuragawa, Kuroishi, and Haneda in 1954. Mizusawa Town was before established in 1889, with the establishment of the municipalities system in Japan. Mizusawa (水沢) can be translated as water-swamp.

Mizusawa-shi (水沢市) is still known for the International Latitude Observatory, so that the name of this city was chosen as the name of the asteroid for the sake of commemorating the research program. The original International Latitude Observatories were a system of six observatories located near the parallel of 39° 08′ north latitude. The alignment of all six stations along the parallel helped the observatories to perform uniform data analysis. The original six observatories were located in:

• Gaithersburg, Maryland, USA
• Cincinnati, Ohio, USA
• Ukiah, California, USA
• Mizusawa, Iwate, Japan
• Charjui, Turkestan
• Carloforte, Italy

Mizusawa of course is a place name asteroid hinting to a certain city in Japan. Many names in Japan contain the Japanese word for water because Japan is a very humid country. That there is water in a swamp is nothing else than self-evident. The task of representing swamps is already fulfilled by the asteroid Sawa. Because it is the task of the asteroid #7677 or Sawa, so it isn’t the task of the asteroid Mizusawa! But asteroid #7530 or Mizusawa has the task to represent the International Latitude Observatory, especially because the other participating observatories are, at least currently, not represented in the sky! So Mizusawa represents collaborations and the spirit of working together also internationally.