(Left) Anish Mukherjee and Debarghya Sarkar. (Sanat Kr Sinha)

Two Calcutta boys have made a place for themselves in the sky at a time when the city’s favourite stars are falling off the World Cup horizon. Debarghya Sarkar and Anish Mukherjee have a planet each named after them.

A letter from the Lincoln Laboratories of Massachusetts Institute of Technology recently reached Debarghya’s Harish Mukherjee Road home, stating that minor planet 2000-AT53, carrying the citation number 25630, will henceforth be known as Sarkar. Another minor planet AH52, with the citation number 25629, has been named Mukherjee.

The South Point students received this honour for winning the Second Grand Award in the electrical and mechanical engineering category at the Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Nevada, US, in 2009. While naming of two minor planets after them was part of the prizes announced for the top two teams, Lincoln Laboratories took time to decide on which planets these would be. Both planets were discovered under their Linear Program on January 4, 2000.

The former classmates, who passed HS this year, won the award for inventing a tamper-proof clamped bottle cap. They have applied for a patent in India but are in no hurry to get into production. While Debarghya has signed up for a course at Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research in Nadia, Anish has got into electrical engineering at Jadavpur University.