New Delhi: Indian school students discovered 18 new new asteroids as part of a global science programme launched by NASA. This was confirmed by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), an organisation that assigns official names and designations to celestial bodies.
STEM and Space, an organisation working towards the learning of astronomy and space science in India, conducted the International Asteroid Discovery Project, along with the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC) as part of a NASA citizen science project.
Mila Mitra, Co-founder and Academic Head of STEM and Space said, “Over the last two years, 150 students from all around India participated in this two-month-long campaign to find asteroids, making this the largest asteroid discovery project in India.”
Every years students from different schools visit NASA. NASA initiates programs like IASC to track asteroids. High-quality astronomical data was provided by IASC — an online scientific program for kids to discover Asteroids and Near-Earth Objects (NEO), during this project, and students from India and all across the globe analysed it.
On an average, students spent two to three hours every day with the aid of advanced software analysis. “Of the 372 preliminary asteroids flagged by the students, 18 were finally declared to be “provisional” or confirmed discoveries of asteroids, informed Mila Mitra.
The students received discovery certificates from IASC and NASA.
