The microbe is called 'Solibacillus Kalamii'.
India's 11th president and its most famous aerospace engineer Dr APJ Abdul Kalam has now been honoured by the NASA by naming a unique microbe found on the International Space Station after him. The microbe is called 'Solibacillus Kalamii'.
It is no ordinary microbe. Till date it has been found only on the International Space Station and now the NASA has named it as Solibacillus Kalamii.
Dr Kasthuri Venkateswaran, scientist, jet propulsion laboratory, NASA, Los Angeles, said, "The name of the bacterium is Solibacillus Kalamii. The species name is after Dr Abdul Kalam and genus name is Solibacillus which is a spore forming bacteria."
The space station is home to many microbes. And this unique microbe was found on the filters of the International Space Station as it orbits the earth almost 400 kilometres above earth.
Dr Venkateswaran, who found the bug, is sure that it went from earth to the space station as a hitch hiker.
Born in Rameswaram in Tamil Nadu, Dr Kalam distributed newspapers at one time to support his family and his education. He graduated with Physics from the Madras University, went on to study aerospace engineering. He was a key player in the 1998 Pokhran nuclear tests. He became India's president in 2002.