THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, 3 May 2008 — Environmentalist Sainudeen Pattazhy, 46, was just amazed when he received a call from the US to inform him that his name is now in the skies.
He says he still does not know why the Bangalore-based astrophysicist R. Rajamohan chose to name one of the six small planets he discovered through his optical telescope at the Vainu Bappu Observatory at Kavalur in Tamil Nadu a decade ago ‘5178 Pattazhy’.
“I don’t know the discoverer of the planet named after me,” Pattazhy, who teaches zoology at a college in Kollam, said Friday.
“Maybe, he might have come across some of my work and been impressed by my extensive researches on subjects such as red rain and the potential health hazards of mobile phone towers,” he said.
According to the website of the NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) at California Institute of Technology, this is the third asteroid that the researcher discovered.
The earlier ones were named after mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujam (No. 4130) and physical chemist Dennis C. Reuter (4706) and three other discoveries (17446, 17564 and 8348) are yet to get a name.
“As a researcher, I am glad my work has been recognized by one of the world’s most authoritative institutions. I am grateful to the magnanimity of the discoverer who proposed my name,” Pattazhy told this newspaper.
As the discoveries are confirmed, they are given a permanent number by the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) Committee on Small Body Nomenclature and the discoverers can then submit names for them, following the IAU’s naming conventions.
There are around 400,000 asteroids, out of which 185,685 have been numbered.
Only 14,438 of them have been given proper names and others are still known by their numbers. The names that shine in the skies include Lincoln, Elvis and Adams. The asteroid naming rules ban controversial names like Stalin and Hitler.
Some of the asteroids carrying Indian names include Raman (physicist Chandrasekhara Venkata Raman) Chandra (astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar), Hanuman, Garuda and Aruna. Young achievers like Akshat Singhal, Anupama Kotha, Niraj Rama Nathan, Hamsa Padmanabhan, Harish-Chandra also have asteroids named after them.
“Indian environmentalist Sainudeen Pattazhy is known for his research on red rain, the control of mosquitoes, the potential health hazards of mobile phone towers and the eco-biology of sacred groves,” says the JPL citation on its website.
Ceres, discovered in 1801 by Giuseppe Piazzi, is the first named minor planet, which was originally considered a new planet.
Though it was the largest asteroid known, it is now classified as a dwarf planet. All other asteroids are now considered small solar system bodies that orbit the sun between Mars and Jupiter.
