The Indian chess grandmaster Viswanathan Anand may have lost the World Chess Championship to Magnus Carlsen, but he now has a minor planet named after him. A minor planet discovered in 1988 has been officially named "(4538) Vishyanand".
"(4538) Vishyanand"
Minor planet (4538), between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter, was discovered on October 10, 1988 by Kenzo Suzuki in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, but had remained unnamed till recently. The discoverer retains the privilege of suggesting a name for 10 years and a committee chosen from the working group of the International Astronomical Union has the final authority to finally assign a name to a numbered minor planet. Michael Rudenko, committee member of the Minor Planet Center, who was invited to do the honours, decided to name it after the former world chess champion, Chess News reported on April 1.
Rudenko proposed the name "Vishyanand", following the rules that require names to be 16 characters or fewer, and preferably without spaces, along with a brief citation explaining the reason for the name. To his delight, the committee gave its approval, and the name has been formally accepted with this citation:
Minor Planets
A minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the sun that is neither a planet nor originally classified as a comet. Since Pluto was redesigned as a "dwarf planet" in 2006, the solar system is left with eight planets and millions of small bodies, including some 675,000 minor planets, which were earlier called asteroids, and 3800 known comets.
The Minor Planet Center, operating at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, is responsible for the identification, designation and orbit computation for all minor planets and comets. On average a new minor planet is discovered every five to ten minutes, and. Once a sufficiently accurate orbit is determined for a minor planet, it is assigned a number. It is also then subject to being named. Of over 127 million observations made by the Center, 678,789 are registered as minor planets, and 430,405 have orbits known well enough to be assigned permanent official numbers. Of these, 19,112 have official names. The first minor planet, discovered in 1801 is known as "(1) Ceres".
A select club
Anand joins former world chess champions Alexander Alekhine and Anatoly Karpov who have had a similar honour bestowed on them, and joins a select list of sporting heroes such as Donald Bradman, Jesse Owens, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
Other Indians have had the honour bestowed on them. In 2002, Vishnu Reddy became the first Indian amateur astronomer to discover an asteroid, and features on the list as does In recent days, some students who have gone on to be recognised by the Intel Science Talent Search have also had minor planets named after them, in an initiative undertaken by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which selects top two performers every year for this honour.
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"(4538) Vishyanand"
Minor planet (4538), between the orbits of the planets Mars and Jupiter, was discovered on October 10, 1988 by Kenzo Suzuki in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture, Japan, but had remained unnamed till recently. The discoverer retains the privilege of suggesting a name for 10 years and a committee chosen from the working group of the International Astronomical Union has the final authority to finally assign a name to a numbered minor planet. Michael Rudenko, committee member of the Minor Planet Center, who was invited to do the honours, decided to name it after the former world chess champion, Chess News reported on April 1.
"My two passions in life are astronomy and chess," says Mike, who has a Playchess account. "I thought it might be appropriate to name a minor planet in honor of a chess grandmaster. My thoughts at once turned to Viswanathan Anand who, in addition to being the fifteenth world chess champion, is also an astronomy buff."
Rudenko proposed the name "Vishyanand", following the rules that require names to be 16 characters or fewer, and preferably without spaces, along with a brief citation explaining the reason for the name. To his delight, the committee gave its approval, and the name has been formally accepted with this citation:
"Viswanathan (Vishy) Anand (b. 1969) was India's first chess grandmaster. He went on to become the fifteenth undisputed world chess champion. In addition to his passion for chess, he is also an avid astrophotography enthusiast."
Minor Planets
A minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the sun that is neither a planet nor originally classified as a comet. Since Pluto was redesigned as a "dwarf planet" in 2006, the solar system is left with eight planets and millions of small bodies, including some 675,000 minor planets, which were earlier called asteroids, and 3800 known comets.
The Minor Planet Center, operating at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, is responsible for the identification, designation and orbit computation for all minor planets and comets. On average a new minor planet is discovered every five to ten minutes, and. Once a sufficiently accurate orbit is determined for a minor planet, it is assigned a number. It is also then subject to being named. Of over 127 million observations made by the Center, 678,789 are registered as minor planets, and 430,405 have orbits known well enough to be assigned permanent official numbers. Of these, 19,112 have official names. The first minor planet, discovered in 1801 is known as "(1) Ceres".
A select club
Anand joins former world chess champions Alexander Alekhine and Anatoly Karpov who have had a similar honour bestowed on them, and joins a select list of sporting heroes such as Donald Bradman, Jesse Owens, Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer.
Other Indians have had the honour bestowed on them. In 2002, Vishnu Reddy became the first Indian amateur astronomer to discover an asteroid, and features on the list as does In recent days, some students who have gone on to be recognised by the Intel Science Talent Search have also had minor planets named after them, in an initiative undertaken by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, which selects top two performers every year for this honour.
