You may know that the names of Great Personlities in various fields, such as, Politics, Sports, Journalism, Cinema etc, are being given to Streets, Towns, and even Cities, to honour the personalities.
Rafael Nadal of Spain, has won his first Wilbledon Title against the over five times defending Champion, Roger Federer of Switzerland, on 6th July 2008. Rafael Nadal, who also has four French Open titles to his credit, became the first Spaniard to win Wimbledon – tennis’ most prestigious event – in more than 40 years when he defeated Switzerland’s Federer in the final 6-4, 6-4, 6-7 (5-7), 6-7 (8-10), 9-7, a match described by many experts as the greatest of all time.
To pay tribute to the Tennis Super Star, the Spanish Observatory wished to name a recently discovered “Dwarf Planet”, discovered in the year 2003, which was named and called “128036”, with the name ”Rafael Nadal”. The Spanish Observatory obtained permission from the “International Astronomical Union”(IAU) and informed Rafael Nadal about the naming of the “Dwarf Planet”/Asteroid after him, invited him to the Observatory, to visit its installations.
