The Indian Chess grandmaster, Viswanathan Anand adds another feather in his cap with a minor planet being named after him. The planet was discovered back in 1988 but had not been formally named until recently. The news about a minor planet being named after him should excite Anand who recently fell to Magnus Carlsen in the recent World Chess Championship.

The minor planet is located roughly between the orbits of planets Mars and Jupiter. The discovery of the planet happened on October 10, 1988 thanks to the works of Kenzo Suzuki in Toyota, Aichi Prefecture in Japan.

Typically, the discoverer retains the rights to suggest a name for the discovered minor planet for 10 years. However, the final authority to assign a name to a minor planet rests with a committee within the International Astronomical Union.

When time came to formally name the numbered minor planet discovered in 1988, Michael Rudenko of Minor Planet Center, a committee of the International Astronomical Union, decided to give the minor planet the name of the chess grandmaster Anand.

Why Anand got his name the planet

According to Rudenko, the idea of naming the numbered minor planet after Anand was actually his own. However, he took some matters into consideration in arriving at the name. Rudenko selected Anand because he considered him a great chess player. Further to that, he selected him because he is an astronomy enthusiast.

How the naming happened

Therefore, when it came to giving the numbered minor planet a formal name, Rudenko proposed “Vishyanand”. The name itself was based on some set of rules that govern the naming of such objects. For one, the rule requires that the proposed name should have 16 characters or less. The naming rule also requires that the proposed name should not have spaces.

In addition to the name proposal, a brief citation that explains the reason for the proposed name should be supplied. Rudenko did all that to get “Vishyanand” through as the name of the numbered minor planet.

Anand is excited

Anand tweeted about his excitement for a planet being named after him. He also thanked Rudenko for taking the trouble to get his name to the outer space.