Kakori and Sandila, two small towns in Northern India, are where my mother and father were born. What I neglected to mention in my biography “My Life: From Riches to Rags and (almost) back” is that two relatively large size craters(about 25km diameter) on Mars have the names Kakori and Sandila. This happened back in the mid-1970s. One day I got a call from the late Hal Masursky who was at Kennedy Airport on his way to Moscow for a meeting of nomenclature  group which was to recommend names for craters on Mars. He wanted from me the names of two or three small towns in India which were exotic enough but not very well known. I instantly said Kakori and Sandila. The names were accepted and are today listed in Wikipedia with their martian coordinates. I hope that Curiosity Rover will one day visit these craters and send us some pictures. 

Advertisement