Cristiano Ronaldo's initials are on the new galaxy name together with his football uniform number. The name of the Real Madrid star is now associated to the "brightest galaxy ever observed," the official press release of the European Southern Observatory reported.
The report said astronomers recently discovered a galaxy and labeled it CR7, which ESO said is inspired by the Portuguese football player Cristiano Ronaldo. Now in the galaxy's name, Cristiano Ronaldo was reportedly thought of as the name because the lead astronomer hails from the same country as the football player.
"Astronomers using ESO's Very Large Telescope have discovered by far the brightest galaxy yet found in the early Universe and found strong evidence that examples of the first generation of stars lurk within it," ESO said in the release.
Scientists and astronomers have reportedly theorized the existence of Population III stars, or those who were thought to have emerged out of the primordial material from the Big Bang. ESO said these Population III stars are "blazing hot and transient," which seem to be associated with Cristiano Ronaldo's sports moves.
With the discovery of this Cristiano Ronaldo Galaxy together with other bright galaxies, the report said the study was already a success and will provide additional news of the next findings.
"The discovery challenged our expectations from the start, as we didn't expect to find such a bright galaxy," said study leader David Sobral who comes from Portugal.
"Then, by unveiling the nature of CR7 piece by piece, we understood that not only had we found by far the most luminous distant galaxy, but also started to realize that it had every single characteristic expected of Population III stars," he added.
The second author of the study said this discovery of the Cristiano Ronaldo galaxy has led remarkable ways to "see such objects for the first time."
"I have always wondered where we came from," author Jorryt Matthee said in the report. "With this discovery, remarkably, we are starting the actually see such objects for the first time."
