Asteroid named after Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai
A Nasa astronomer has named Asteroid 316201 after Nobel Peace Prize winner Malala Yousafzai.
WASHINGTON (Agencies) - Malala Yousafzai, the youngest ever winner of a Nobel Peace Prize, has now got something else cool to her name. A Nasa astronomer has named Asteroid 316201, in the main belt between Mars and Jupiter, after the activist.
Dr Amy Mainzer discovered the asteroid, and, according to the International Astronomical Union’s rules, was able to name it. Malala’s asteroid, formal name 316201 Malala or 2010 ML48, orbits the sun every 5.5 years.
Mainzer said she chose to name it after Malala because “My postdoctoral fellow Dr Carrie Nugent brought to my attention the fact that although many asteroids have been named, very few have been named to honour the contributions of women (and particularly women of colour).”
Malala is the red dot in the picture, seen through an infrared lens showing the heat the asteroid’s giving off, rather than sunlight reflecting off its surface.
The stars in the image are blue because they are thousands of degrees in temperature and, just like the hottest flames are blue, infrared shows the highest temperatures as blue. From the heat emitted we can also determine the size of the asteroid, which is about four kilometres across and was discovered using the NEOWISE telescope that orbits Earth.
Mainzer hopes it will encourage more young girls to consider a career in science as an option: “My advice to young girls is that science and engineering are for everyone! We desperately need the brainpower of all smart people to solve some of humanity’s most difficult problems, and we can’t afford to reject half the population’s. Plus, it is a wonderful feeling to learn about the world around you – it’s a job you will fall in love with each day.”
Malala is a Pakistani human rights activist, fighting for the right of girls to have access to education, who five years ago wrote an anonymous diary about life living under the Taliban in north-west Pakistan.
Since then she’s survived being shot in the head, won a Nobel Peace Prize and co-written a memoir. Now she also shares her name with an Asteroid.
