A FORMER Dover school boy who came third in the world in a science competition has now received another honour - a planet has been named after him.

Nick Hayward, 18, who was head prefect of the Dover Boys' Grammar School, is currently studying at Cambridge University.

His award-winning project, which he researched and developed while on a five-week placement with Pfizer, involved a completely revolutionary method for one of the steps of drug development from raw material to drug substance.

A new pharmaceutical process with financial and environmental benefits, in technical terms it is "a pioneering method of amide reduction, screened reactions using many analytical methods, automation chemistry and robotics and contributed to frontier organic synthesis".

What made his achievement even more amazing was that he succeeded where older and more experienced university graduates had failed.

After winning a top award and international recognition for his science research project at the National Science Fair in London, Nick was funded by the British Association to go to the International Science and Engineering Fair in Kentucky.

One of only two students from Great Britain who went to the international fair, he was delighted and very surprised when his project was judged third in the world, out of nearly 100 entries in the category.

As a result, he was invited to meet Prime Minister Tony Blair who congratulated him on his achievement.

This week, Nick heard that a planet had been named after him in honour of his success.

"The Massachusetts Institute of Technology have a space observation laboratory called The Lincoln Laboratory," Nick told the Mercury. "They launched the Ceres Connection Linear Program and gained the international right to a map and to name the minor planets that orbit our sun.

"The three largest are called Ceres, Juno and Pallas, and the others were originally given a number. MIT decided to name planets in honour of the top international young scientists, and there is now officially a planet named Hayward after my chemistry success there.

"Where scientists would have been honoured through the naming of elements, they now use the minor planet honour."

Planet Hayward orbits at an inclined plane somewhere between Jupiter and Mars and takes 4.55 earth years to orbit the sun once. It is between four and nine kilometres in diameter.

"It is a genuine scientific honour and it will remain in my family name forever," said Nick.