Star 392 lightyears away from Earth named after THIS former PM of India

Former Indian Prime Minister and Bharat Ratna recipient Atal Bihari Vajpayee was conferred with an astronomical honour on his birth anniversary. On December 25, also observed as “Good Governance Day’ in India, the Bharatiya Janata Party’s Aurangabad unit got a star 392 lightyears away from Earth named after Vajpayee. 

The news was shared by Aurangabad BJP president Shirish Boralkar on Sunday who revealed that the star was 392.01 light years away from Earth and located at coordinates 14 05 25.3 -60 28 51.9. The star was registered with the name Atal Bihar Vajpayee with the International Space Registry on December 25, 2022 with registration number CX16408US in the International Space Registry certificate. 

Sunday was former PM Vajpayee’s 98th birth anniversary. A stalwart BJP leader, Vajpayee served as the Indian Prime Minister twice. First for 14 days from May 16 to June 1 in 1996 and then returning for a full tenure from March 19, 1998 to May 22, 2004.

Earlier, he had served as the External Affairs Minister of India under PM Moraji Desai between 1977 and 1979. Vajpayee breathed his last on August 16, 2018 at the Delhi AIIMS hospital. His birthday was marked as ‘Good Governance Day’ by current PM Narendra Modi after he came to power in 2014.

READ | Mercury to Neptune, all planets line up for Christmas-New Year, how to watch spectacular celestial show

With inputs from ANI