Samantha is asteroid #3147 and also known as 1976 YU3. Samantha was discovered by the Russian-born Soviet astronomer Lyudmila Ivanovna Chernykh (Людми́ла Ива́новна Черны́х) at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory (CrAO) at the Nauchnij research campus, also known as Crimea–Nauchnij. Samantha is a common asteroid from the main section of the Asteroid Main Belt. Samantha’s orbit is characterized by a semi-major axis of 2.62 Astronomical Units, an eccentricity of 0.19, a period of revolution of 1 553 days, and an inclination of 3.5 degrees.

Samantha is named after Samantha Reed Smith. I randomly found an article on her and think it is an interesting read. Thus the asteroid Samantha caught my attention. Samantha Smith lived from 1971 until 1985 (didn’t complete her fourteenth year) and was from Manchester, Maine, USA. When she was ten years old, then the western propaganda had affected her so much that she feared being nuked by the Soviets. So she wrote a letter to Yuri Andropov, the General Secretary of the Communist Party, and asked him why the Soviet Union wants war. When there still was no reaction two years later, in 1983, she wrote a letter to the Soviet Ambassador in the USA. He replied that a letter from Yuri Andropov is on the way forwarded to her. The world back then was, despite the permanent and really felt threat of a nuclear war, much more peaceful than the world today! Because back then the people all over the world still communicated with each other instead of only shooting at each other! So it was possible that the head of the Soviet Union communicated with a little girl in the USA too. He invited her to visit the Soviet Union and convince herself that the people in the Soviet Union want nothing else than peace. She went on that trip and enjoyed it very much. The press was always on her heels, already since the invitation. The Soviet press was always on her heels too. She certainly didn’t understand how both sides used her for their propaganda. She was after her trip much present in tv shows in the USA and her trip also was the beginning of an international exchange program for children. Samantha Smith also became a child actor when she had got used to tv cameras. On a flight home after filming an episode of a tv series, Samantha and her father died in a plane crash in 1985. Samantha Smith got commemorated in manifold ways in the USA as well as in the Soviet Union.

The name Samantha was a very unusual name until popularized by a tv series. The etymology of the name is unclear. It is usually presumed that Samantha got constructed as a female form of the male name Samuel, which means “listening to God”.

Because the etymology of the name Samantha is unclear, so it doesn’t need to be considered. Samantha represents the sudden and unexpected end of a promising career. But the most important task of the asteroid #3147 should be to show a cause of death. This is the theme of this asteroid. Samantha shows that an incarnation ends by a plane crash. Like for example Banno indicates a traffic accident in general instead, most likely a car accident. Samantha of course is also a person name asteroid, that represents people named Samantha.