The Times of India
Lunar crater named after Shah Rukh 25 Jan, 2010 12:43 pm IST l TNN
Bollywood has finally made it to the moon. It is making its presence felt 4 lakh km away on the lunar surface in an area close to where the first men on the moon, Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, landed on July 20, 1969, reports Srinivas Laxman.
The International Lunar Geographic Society, a New York-based organisation devoted to the study of the moon, has declared that a lunar crater in the moon’s Sea of Tranquillity has been christened after Shah Rukh Khan.
This has been approved by the International Astronomical Union, which has a final say with regard to the naming of craters on the moon. The crater “has been given the honorary designation as Crater S R Khan on the occasion of Mr Khan’s 44th birthday’’ on November 2, 2009, said the society.
The decision has triggered a mixed response within the scientific community, with the father of the Indian moon mission Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan supporting it, but president of the National Space Society, Suresh Naik, describing it as “shocking’’.
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