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Cristiano Ronaldo is undoubtedly a star of world football, but it seems the Real Madrid winger is now a galaxy too.
The Portugal international has had his nickname, CR7, given to a new galaxy after astronomers at the European Southern Observatory used Ronaldo as inspiration for the naming of their new find.
The CR7 name officially stands for Cosmos Redshift 7 - a measure of the galaxy's place in cosmic time - but scientists led by David Sobral from the University of Lisbon revealed they wanted to honour Ronaldo by naming the galaxy after him.
According to astronomers, CR7 is "three times brighter than the brightest distant galaxy known up to now."
Ronaldo himself landed his second successive Ballon d'Or award - and his third overall - in January after scoring 52 goals in 43 games during 2014, which contributed to Real winning their 10th Champions League last year.
However, the Portuguese star was unable to steer Los Blancos to silverware last season after Real ended the campaign without winning a major title.
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The failure to land any trophies resulted in coach Carlo Ancelotti being sacked before Rafael Benitez was appointed as the Italian's replacement this month.
