Named in honor of Michail Ivanovich Petaev, visiting planetary geologist in the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics Planetary Sciences division. Petaev’s investigations include the study of the origins of enstatite chondrite and achondrite meteorites, and he has made detailed studies of numerous meteorites. (M 22499) _ _.
Discovered on 23-9-1949 in Heidelberg by Reinmuth, K.