The cosmos has extended an unusual honor to a University of Texas professor. Maruthi Akella, a longtime resident in academia and aerospace, now shares his name with an asteroid that resides in the expanse between Mars and Jupiter. According to FOX 7 Austin, the asteroid, named Maruthiakella, measures over five miles wide and was first spotted back in the year 1990.
Despite being among the countless rocks drifting in space, Maruthiakella holds a special significance by bearing the professor's name – an occurrence not too frequent, with less than 2% of the 1.4 million cataloged "small planets" possessing such personalized titles. Ryan Park, a scientist at NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory, put forth Akella's name for this celestial recognition, a selection that left the professor in a state of gratitude. "I think his jaw would hit the floor," Akella told FOX 7 Austin, reflecting on his humble beginnings in small-town India.
The International Astronomical Union (IAU), holding the reins over astral appellations, formalizes the naming process. Akella's contributions to space exploration, including his influence on lunar lander designs and his current projects in the navigation systems for lunar hoppers, undoubtedly played a role in this honor. "My little contributions, so far, have been the first intuitive machines lunar landing mission, which happened earlier this year," Akella mentioned in an interview with Yahoo News.
The specifics of naming an asteroid are laced with particular rules, "Politicians are ruled out. They have to be 100 years, you know, gone. And they can be from anywhere on the planet," Akella remarked, as per Yahoo News. There are also restrictions against using commercial or cartoon characters as inspiration. Orbiting the sun every three years, Maruthiakella, a lasting testament to the professor’s work, is now etched into the logs of space and time.
