The name of Don Quixote’s author, Miguel de Cervantes, is recognized globally. Since Dec.15 it’s also recognized as part of the immensity of the universe … because there is now a star in the sky named after the Spanish writer.

Planetario de Pamplona and the Spanish Astronomical Society were the ones that submitted this proposal — "Estrella Cervantes" — to the initiative launched by the International Astronomic Society (IAS) and called NameExoWorlds.

IAS offered astronomical entities the opportunity to name 19 ExoWorlds — 14 stars and 31 exoplanets orbiting them — which were recently discovered.

Around 274 names were submitted by organizations from 45 different countries and more than half a million people from 182 countries cast a vote.

By regions, there are four organizational winners from North America (the United States, Canada and Mexico); one from South America; two from the Middle East (Morocco and Syria); six from Europe (France, Italy, Netherlands, Spain and Switzerland); and six from Asia and Oceania (Japan, Thailand and Australia).

The Spanish proposal — "Estrella Cervantes” — had more than 38,000 votes.

Cervantes’ star is not alone. Four of most famous of Cervantes’ characters are orbiting around it: Quixote, Rocinante, Sancho and Dulcinea are the names of the four planets which orbit this star and constitute a planetary system known as μ Arae.

The rest of the names include astronomers (Copernicus, Galileo, Brahe, Lippershey, Janssen and Harriot); the philosopher Hypatia (the name was proposed by the student society of the school of Physicists of Universidad Complutense de Madrid.) There are also mythological creatures, gods and disciplines like music.