Wow! Thanks to Minor Planet center for this! Vishy Anand deserves this laurel!
Vishy Anand is now a planet
4538 Vishyanand was discovered in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, on 10 October 1988, but has remained unnamed for almost 10 years, until now.
The moment Viswanathan Anand heard about it, he thought it must be a prank. A fairly good one for 1 April. An April fool’s joke. But then friends started calling and congratulating him. For having a small planet named after him.
Of course, Anand didn’t believe it one bit. But then someone said, there’s something about it on Nasa’s website. So, Anand decided to check it for himself. And yes, it looked quite right. 4538 Vishyanand was there.
In all its splendour—a speck of dust in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, one among the 650,000 such astral bodies. Those that are termed as minor planets.
On 1 April, the planet was named after the Indian grandmaster and five-time world chess champion by the Minor Planet Center, proposed by Michael Rudenko, a chess buff and a committee member at the Center. Minor planet 4538 Vishyanand was discovered by Kenzo Suzuki in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, on 10 October 1988 but has remained unnamed for almost 10 years, until now.
Why 10? Because usually the naming of a minor planet is reserved for the discoverer. And then an international committee of astronomers—members of a working group of International Astronomical Union (IAU)—officially assign a name to the planet. However, if the planet continues to remain unnamed after 10 years, then the committee members themselves decide on a name. That’s how the planet got its name.
Anand, of course, is a bit surprised and can’t help but find humour in what has come to pass. “Aruna (his wife) jokes about it saying sometimes, I seem to be from some other planet,” he said in a phone interview with Mint. “And now it turns out to be actually true.” It is another matter altogether that Anand and Rudenko have never met.
But Anand wants to thank Rudenko for the rare honour. “It’s a very nice compliment. I want to thank Michael Rudenko. It’s a very nice gesture on his part, and it is so satisfying,” he said. But why Anand? Rudenko could have chosen anyone in the world.
Not quite, because as it turns out, Anand is an astronomy buff and a deep space photography enthusiast. Little wonder then that the astronomer Rudenko, a chess buff with a Playchess account, decided it was appropriate to name the object after Anand. Speaking to ChessBase, an online chess portal, Rudenko said, “My two passions in life are astronomy and chess. I thought it might be appropriate to name a minor planet in honour of a chess grandmaster. My thoughts at once turned to Viswanathan Anand who, in addition to being the 15th world chess champion, is also an astronomy buff.”
Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Consumer/fo1wbm2hsEzBXw0yC5ML6I/Minor-planet-named-after-Viswanathan-Anand.html?utm_source=copy
Vishy Anand is now a planet
4538 Vishyanand was discovered in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, on 10 October 1988, but has remained unnamed for almost 10 years, until now.
The moment Viswanathan Anand heard about it, he thought it must be a prank. A fairly good one for 1 April. An April fool’s joke. But then friends started calling and congratulating him. For having a small planet named after him.
Of course, Anand didn’t believe it one bit. But then someone said, there’s something about it on Nasa’s website. So, Anand decided to check it for himself. And yes, it looked quite right. 4538 Vishyanand was there.
In all its splendour—a speck of dust in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter, one among the 650,000 such astral bodies. Those that are termed as minor planets.
On 1 April, the planet was named after the Indian grandmaster and five-time world chess champion by the Minor Planet Center, proposed by Michael Rudenko, a chess buff and a committee member at the Center. Minor planet 4538 Vishyanand was discovered by Kenzo Suzuki in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, on 10 October 1988 but has remained unnamed for almost 10 years, until now.
Why 10? Because usually the naming of a minor planet is reserved for the discoverer. And then an international committee of astronomers—members of a working group of International Astronomical Union (IAU)—officially assign a name to the planet. However, if the planet continues to remain unnamed after 10 years, then the committee members themselves decide on a name. That’s how the planet got its name.
Anand, of course, is a bit surprised and can’t help but find humour in what has come to pass. “Aruna (his wife) jokes about it saying sometimes, I seem to be from some other planet,” he said in a phone interview with Mint. “And now it turns out to be actually true.” It is another matter altogether that Anand and Rudenko have never met.
But Anand wants to thank Rudenko for the rare honour. “It’s a very nice compliment. I want to thank Michael Rudenko. It’s a very nice gesture on his part, and it is so satisfying,” he said. But why Anand? Rudenko could have chosen anyone in the world.
Not quite, because as it turns out, Anand is an astronomy buff and a deep space photography enthusiast. Little wonder then that the astronomer Rudenko, a chess buff with a Playchess account, decided it was appropriate to name the object after Anand. Speaking to ChessBase, an online chess portal, Rudenko said, “My two passions in life are astronomy and chess. I thought it might be appropriate to name a minor planet in honour of a chess grandmaster. My thoughts at once turned to Viswanathan Anand who, in addition to being the 15th world chess champion, is also an astronomy buff.”
Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Consumer/fo1wbm2hsEzBXw0yC5ML6I/Minor-planet-named-after-Viswanathan-Anand.html?utm_source=copy
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