In mid-2009, it was officially named Madola by the International Astronomical Union, in honor of Christian Marois (b. 1974), René Doyon (b. 1963) and David Lafrenière (b. 1978), who developed instruments and techniques that allowed the first direct photograph of an extrasolar planetary system, consisting of three planets orbiting the star HR 8799 in Pegasus.
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Doyon was director of the Mont-Mégantic Observatory in Quebec; Marois and Lafrenière were postdoctoral fellows at the Herzberg Institute of Astrophysics and the University of Toronto.