It was discovered on September 12, 1977 by Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh and named after Norwegian anthropologist Thor Heyerdahl.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thor_Heyerdahl

Chernykh (1931 – 2004) was born in the Russian city of Usman in Voronezh Oblast,in present-day Lipetsk Oblast. He specialized in astrometry and the dynamics of small bodies in the Solar System and worked at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory from 1963.
He discovered two periodic comets 74P/Smirnova–Chernykh and 101P/Chernykh and many asteroids, notably 2867 Šteins and the Trojan asteroid 2207 Antenor

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolai_Chernykh

Thor Heyerdahl (1914–2002) was an experimental archaeologist, ethnographer, explorer, author, and adventurer. He was not always right in his hypotheses, but he had many ideas he wanted to test.

His name became known in earnest through an expedition with the "Kon-Tiki" in 1947, when he sailed 8,000 km across the Pacific Ocean in a hand-built raft from Callao in Lima, Peru, South America to Raroia, Tuamotu Islands, French Polynesia. The expedition was intended to show that people long ago could have made long sea voyages and created contacts between seemingly separate cultures.

Here is a YouTube video of his wild dangerous ride on a raft over The Pasific :

https://youtu.be/gvBYfba8nv8?si=toPoK6gkHEqSn43E

Some nearby stars reveal themselves by their proper motion over a period of time from approximately 1955 to the present day.

Sun distance (au): 2,39 Mag. 16,8

Time: 02:17UT 2026-03-04 Exp. 80 x 30sec.
Tel. 0.254m f/5.8 ST-10XME CCD @ -25°C 1.9"/pix
Odd Trondal Obs.code 238 (Uranium). Oslo Norway.