Sainudeen Pattazhy is Associaate professor zoology, now working at the University of Kerala, Karyavattom Campus, Thiruvananthapuram who comes from Kerala, India. [1]
In 2008, the Committee for Small Bodies Nomenclature [2] (CSBN) of the International Astronomical Union, an association of professional astronomers, named the minor planet [3] 5178 Pattazhy – discovered by the California-based astronomer Rajgopalan Rajamohan in 1989 – in his honor. [1]
Dr.Sainudeen Pattazhy has got a special interest in environmental issues. He heads the Kerala Environmental Researchers Association (KERA). He discovered the cause of red rain and studied the health hazards of mobile phone towers; and soft drinks like colo, pepsi etc; eco-biology of sacred groves; and environmental effects of sand, rock, clay mining, plastic and pesticide pollution. He also invented a new biological method to control mosquitoes. His suggestions on health hazards are still pending with the Union Ministry of Environment, India. The telecommunication department in Kerala has constituted a committee to study health hazards and suggest measures in the light of his research works.
Sainudeen Pattazhy became popular for his study on the red rain phenomenon in Kerala in recent years, particularly 2001. His research proved that the red colour of the rains were due to a geological process and had nothing to do with alien life. "Regarding red rain, there was an argument that it was alien presence. But that’s just like science fiction. During 2001-02, peculiar geological situation was prevailing in Kerala like caving in of wells and landslides," he added.
He has got published 200 research papers in different national and international journals, including those in the USA, UK and Australia. He has been honoured by several Indian, British and American awards for his contributions to environmental science.
Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli was an Italian astronomer and science historian.
An astronomical object, celestial object, stellar object or heavenly body is a naturally occurring physical entity, association, or structure that exists within the observable universe. In astronomy, the terms object and body are often used interchangeably. However, an astronomical body or celestial body is a single, tightly bound, contiguous entity, while an astronomical or celestial object is a complex, less cohesively bound structure, which may consist of multiple bodies or even other objects with substructures.
In ancient times, only the Sun and Moon, a few stars, and the most easily visible planets had names. Over the last few hundred years, the number of identified astronomical objects has risen from hundreds to over a billion, and more are discovered every year. Astronomers need to be able to assign systematic designations to unambiguously identify all of these objects, and at the same time give names to the most interesting objects, and where relevant, features of those objects.
Michel Gustave Édouard Mayor is a Swiss astrophysicist and professor emeritus at the University of Geneva's Department of Astronomy. He formally retired in 2007, but remains active as a researcher at the Observatory of Geneva. He is co-laureate of the 2019 Nobel Prize in Physics along with Jim Peebles and Didier Queloz, and the winner of the 2010 Viktor Ambartsumian International Prize and the 2015 Kyoto Prize.
Charles Thomas Kowal was an American astronomer known for his observations and discoveries in the Solar System. As a staff astronomer at Caltech's Mount Wilson and Palomar Mountain observatories between 1961 and 1984, he found the first of a new class of Solar System objects, the centaurs, discovered two moons of the planet Jupiter, and discovered or co-discovered a number of asteroids, comets and supernovae. He was awarded the James Craig Watson Medal for his contributions to astronomy in 1979.
Brian Geoffrey Marsden was a British astronomer and the longtime director of the Minor Planet Center (MPC) at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.
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The definition of planet has changed several times since the word was coined by the ancient Greeks. Greek astronomers employed the term ἀστέρες πλανῆται, 'wandering stars', for star-like objects which apparently moved over the sky. Over the millennia, the term has included a variety of different celestial bodies, from the Sun and the Moon to satellites and asteroids.
José Luis Ortiz Moreno is a Spanish astronomer, and former Vicedirector of Technology at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA), Spain. He leads a team working on minor planets at the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Granada, Spain. The main-belt asteroid 4436 Ortizmoreno was named in his honor.
Krisztián Sárneczky is a Hungarian teacher of geography and prolific discoverer of minor planets and supernovae, researching at Konkoly Observatory in Budapest, Hungary. He is a board member of the Hungarian Astronomical Association (HAA) and member of the American Association of Variable Star Observers, leader of the Comet Section of the HAA, and is a contributor in the editorial work of Hungarian Astronomical Almanach.
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A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit of the Sun, smaller than any of the eight classical planets but still a world in its own right. The prototypical dwarf planet is Pluto. The interest of dwarf planets to planetary geologists is that they may be geologically active bodies, an expectation that was borne out in 2015 by the Dawn mission to Ceres and the New Horizons mission to Pluto.
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) defined in August 2006 that, in the Solar System, a planet is a celestial body that:
According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term minor planet, but that year's meeting reclassified minor planets and comets into dwarf planets and small Solar System bodies (SSSBs).
Haumea was the first of the IAU-recognized dwarf planets to be discovered since Pluto in 1930. Its naming as a dwarf planet was delayed by several years due to controversy over who should receive credit for its discovery. A California Institute of Technology (Caltech) team headed by Michael E. Brown first noticed the object, but a Spanish team headed by José Luis Ortiz Moreno were the first to announce it, and so normally would receive credit. Brown accused the Spanish team of fraud, using Caltech observations without credit to make their discovery, while the Ortiz team accused the American team of political interference with the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The IAU officially recognized the Californian team's proposed name Haumea over the name proposed by the Spanish team, Ataecina, in September 2008.
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Kazimieras Černis is a Lithuanian astronomer and astrophysicist, active member of the IAU, and a prolific discoverer of minor planets and comets. In 2012, he discovered 420356 Praamzius, a trans-Neptunian object and dwarf planet candidate.
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