NASA Scientist Names Asteroid After Malala

Malala, now 17, rose to fame in 2009 for her anti-Taliban blog billed as “Gul Makai (cornflower) for the BBC against Taliban when she was merely 11.

CAIRO – Pakistan’s Malala Yousafzai, the youngest ever Nobel laureate, now has an asteroid named in her honor after a NASA astronomer decided to attach her name to the planet he discovered five years ago to honor the young Muslim.

“(Dr Carrie Nugent) and I read about Malala's amazing story and thought that if anyone deserves to have an asteroid named after them, she does,” Dr Amy Mainzer, who works at the space agency’s jet propulsion laboratory in California, told the Independent.

Working at the space agency’s jet propulsion laboratory in California, Mainzer said she was inspired by a colleague who pointed out that of the many named asteroids, few honored the contributions of women and even fewer were from ethnic minorities.

Pakistan’s Malala Shares Nobel Peace Prize

Malala, now 17, rose to fame in 2009 for her anti-Taliban blog billed as “Gul Makai (cornflower) for the BBC against Taliban when she was merely 11.

However, many believe that her diaries were written by her father, Ziauddin an owner and principal of the school where Malala would study, in collaboration with the then BBC Urdu Service Bureau Chief.

Malal’s autobiography “I am Malala”  earned fame worldwide, however was struck in controversy in Malala’s  homeland with many dubbing her as a tool being exploited by the West to malign Islam and Pakistan under the guise of Taliban, is written by British Christina Lamb.

Malala Yousafzai and Indian Children’s right activist Kailash Satyarthi jointly received the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize last December.

In August 2013, Malala won the International Children’s Peace Prize for her dedication to promoting education.

She now lives and attends school in England’s Birmingham.

Dr Mainzer said she hoped the asteroid’s name would remind young people 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,” she wrote.

Asteroid 316201 was discovered on 23 June 2010 by the scientist, the discovery which granted her to name it under International Astronomical Union rules.

The black rock is four kilometers wide and orbits the sun every five-and-a-half years as part of the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter.

source:onislam