* Having a planet, even a minor one, named after you, is probably the last thing on any teenager’s mind. Yet, Anna Midgley, 17, a Herschel Girls’ High pupil, has just been informed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Lincoln Laboratory that they have named a minor planet in her honour as recognition for being a top award winner in the 2015 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair, held in Pittsburgh. Anna, who is now in Grade 11, won the prize for her Grade 9 Science project, High Protein Fynbos Nuts: A New Superfood, competing against more than 1 600 students from 70 countries. Anna received the news of her planet this week in a letter from the head of the Aerospace Division of the MIT. Enclosed was a certificate identifying her planet, called (31935) Midgley, an orbital plot showing the location of her planet and instructions on how she may keep track of it.
Finest of the Fest on stage