“A star on earth and a planet in the sky.”

Here’s a question for the nerds… what do Roger Federer, Jesse Owens, Arsene Wenger, Donald Bradman and India’s Viswanathan Anand have in common?

Well, apart from all of them being connected to some sport, they all have minor planets named after them. The former World Chess Champion joined this unique club when a minor planet (4538), located roughly between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter, was named after him.

The newly-named minor planet, (4538 Vishyanand), was discovered by Kenzo Suzuki of Toyota, Japan, on October 10, 1988.

When chess grandmaster Viswanathan Anand first started getting congratulatory messages on April 1 about a minor planet being named after him, he was sure that someone was pulling an April Fool prank on him. But when he opened the NASA website to check for himself, it looked fairly real. There was a planet named ‘4538 Vishyanand’.

This minor planet was named by Michael Rudenko, a staff member of the Minor Planet Center and a chess buff. “The idea of naming a minor planet after Anand was entirely my own. After careful consideration I selected him because in addition to being a great chess player, he is also a gentleman and an astronomy enthusiast,” Rudenko told The New Indian Express.

Courtesy : The New Indian Express