Luminaries of Bangladesh
Crater on Mercury named after Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin
The planet Mercury has so far 763 craters. Did you know that one of craters on the planet is named after the great Bangladeshi painter?
Many of the features on planet Mercury are named after the world’s great artists, musicians and writers to honour them for their contribution to humanity. The names include Yeats, Bach, Balzac, Beethoven and Pablo Neruda. The list also includes Bangladesh’s greatest artist Shilpacharya Zainul Abedin.
The International Astronomical Union named the crater as ‘Abedin’ back in 2009.
Shilpacharya is world renowned for his paintings on famines, most famously of the 1940s. He led the modern art movement in Bangladesh and he is called ‘the father of Bangladeshi modern art.’ He was the founding principal of the Dhaka University’s Institute of Fine Arts, formerly the Government Institute of Arts and Crafts, founded in 1948. The great artist was born in Mymensingh district, near the river Brahmaputra, in 1914. Two of his most famous creations are 'Sangram' (Struggle) and 'Famine 1943'.
The crater called Abedin was discovered on Mercury and captured by the NASA’s discovery mission MESSENGER. According to NASA, “This impact crater in the high northern latitudes of Mercury was recently named after the Bangladeshi painter Zainul Abedin (1914-1976). Abedin exhibits a complex crater structure with a smooth floor, wall terraces, and a central peak complex.”
NASA’s Photojournal said the crater was acquired on 6 October in 2008 with Narrow Angle Camera (NAC) of the Mercury Dual Imaging System (MDIS). As per the scale, crater Abedin is 110 kilometres in diameter and its spacecraft altitude is 22,800 kilometres.
It also said crater ‘Abedin can be seen near the top of this full planet mosaic (PIA11245) near a spectacular rayed crater.’