Asteroid (9161) Beaufort

Francis Beaufort (1774-1857) was an admiral of the British Navy who devised the scale for classifying wind force at sea. Since the (originally 13) force numbers of the Beaufort scale made no reference to the speed of the wind, many attempts have been made to relate the numbers with wind velocity.

For eight years starting in 1848, Beaufort directed the Arctic Council during its search for the explorer, Sir John Franklin, lost in his last polar voyage to search for the legendary Northwest Passage.

The Beaufort Sea is a marginal sea of the Arctic Ocean, located north of the Northwest Territories, the Yukon, and Alaska, west of Canada's Arctic islands.

Orbit type: Main Belt Asteroid 

Reference: MPC 47297

Name: 
Beaufort
Number: 
9161
Designation: 
1987 BZ1
Disc. Date: 
1987-01-26
Discoverer: 
Elst, E.W.
Disc. Place: 
ESO