New Delhi: Two Delhi students have made history by discovering a new asteroid as part of a unique astronomy project connected to US space agency Nasa. The duo will also get an opportunity to name the asteroid.
Vaibhav Sapra and Sharanjeet Singh, Class 12 students of Bal Bharati Public School in Pitampura, discovered a main belt asteroid (2011 QM14) this month as part of the All India Asteroid Search Campaign (AIASC).
About 60 schools from across India participated.
NGO Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) along with the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC), an international educational outreach programme, were behind the project involving students.
Both Sapra and Singh were on cloud nine after they received a communication in this regard from IASC director Patrick Miller on August 27.
"I can't tell you how happy I am as I really wanted to discover an asteroid and name it. I had participated in the competition last year also but at that time I was not successful," Singh told IANS.
Last year, two Delhi students had discovered a main belt asteroid for the first time during the same programme.
Asteroids are very small planet-like objects that generally go around the Sun in orbits located between Mars and Jupiter. Sometimes these are nudged by gravitational forces out of their orbits and can come into contact with Earth.
The AIASC campaign, in its second year, provides an opportunity for students to collaborate and analyse data for asteroid hunting.
Hands-on training
"The participants are provided hands-on training to go through exclusive data files of the sky provided by IASC using astronomical data analysis software. The data files had images of the sky taken in the night with 24-inch and 32-inch telescopes at the Astronomical Research Institute (ARI) Observatory in the US," said Space Group Chief managing director Sachin Bahmba.
The programme will allow the discoverers to name the asteroid.
