Asteroid- A…steroid for the name?

New Wimbledon champion Rafael Nadal now shares his name with a recently discovered asteroid. The asteroid was previously called with a number 128.. something.

So what does this mean to him and to us. Does this mean that Rafael Nadal the asteroid will be remembered for more time than Rafael Nadal the tennis player.  Who is more important the guy who worked hard for making ‘Rafael Nadal’ a brand or the asteroid who earned it because it was discovered at the same time the player made a record after 1980 (winning 4th French Open and both French Open and the Wimbledon in the same year). The only point where the asteroid scores is it will outlive the player for a much longer time span.

This follows Roger Federer’s name being given to a star. The main question is how much does this affect the interest of the common man or the fact that people remember it like the Sun or the Moon or even Jupiter or the recently controversial Pluto.  People will usually forget the name except for the time it amuses them.

Does this serve like a steroid for the names of famous people?  Perhaps the  people who name such cosmic bodies with famous people think that they solve their problem for naming a newly discovered body.

But the fact remains that mankind will always remember the man more than the machine or the asteroid in this case.