Sahithi Pingali is a Class 12 student of Inventure Academy, Bengaluru, who has been given the honour of having a minor planet in the Milky Way named after her, a report in The Hindu says. 

The honour was awarded for her research work on the specks of froth of Bengaluru’s polluted lakes. She also excelled in the world’s largest pre-college science competition – Intel International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF). 

Pingali, who was one of 2000 finalists at the event, has also developed an integrated mobile phone app and lake monitoring kit that obtains data through crowdsourcing, the report added. 

After she came within the top 3% of ISEF, Pingali was given the honour by Lincoln Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which has the right to name minor planets.

While the Indian contingent took home 21 awards in all, Pingali won three special awards and was awarded “overall second place” in the Earth and Environment Sciences category. 

“I definitely didn’t see this coming. I was expecting one special award at most. I haven’t yet digested the fact that I have a planet named after me,” she told The Hindu.

Feature image source:  Inventure Academy’s Facebook page