Named in honor of Yurij Nikolaevich Gnedin (1935– ), well-known Russian astrophysicist, deputy director of the Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory and professor at St. Petersburg Technical University. Gnedin has studied the transfer of polarized radiation in cosmic media, the physics of neutron stars, black holes and comets, cosmomicrophysics and the physics of x-ray sources. (M 30475) _ _.