Shubham Sharma and Mayank Sharma are on cloud nine which is still well below the new asteroid that they have just discovered!
The provisional discovery of the asteroid has been made by the duo as part of All India Asteroid Search Campaign 2012.
Students of Std XII at DAV Centenary School, Paschim Vihar and astronomy enthusiasts Subham and Mayank along with 75 other teams comprising two participants each from across the country were given access to exclusive data for three months to spot moving objects (through a specialised software), which could be asteroids.
Asteroids are very small planet-like objects that generally orbit the sun in orbits located between Mars and Jupiter. Using a complex procedure called ‘Astrometrica’ they tracked moving objects by looking at the images of the sky provided by 24” and 32” telescopes at the Astronomical Research Institute (ARI) Observatory located at Charleston, USA, which could be asteroids.
The discovery has been done by the students under the guidance of Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) in collaboration with International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC).
Shubham and Mayank’s interest developed in space activities after winning Space Satellite Design contest organised by NASA last year. “Though I want to do computer science engineering from IIT, I have a huge interest in astronomy and space activities also,” says Shubham.
“I used to watch lot of TV shows on asteroid and meteors and when I got an opportunity to be a part of an event like this, I put in my all efforts,” Mayank, who wants to be an astronaut, shares with Metrolife.
As a team Mayank and Shubham were given same data by SPACE which they would analyse everyday for around two-three hours at their own places. They had to send a combined report based on the data daily.
Such discovery has been made by school students previously also under the same campaign. Dr Mila Mitra, Scientific Officer, SPACE, says the discovery of asteroids is important for it helps to know any threat being posed by moving objects in our solar system. “All data is sent to Minor Planet Centre (MPC). It is a great thing for students as they get to work parallelly with professional astronomers,” she says.
“Asteroids are hard to search for and needs dedication and continuous efforts. Provisional discoveries are the asteroids which have been confirmed by further observations,” she informs.
It is a discovery since this is a new asteroid. Earlier, the duo had also found an old asteroid which is called observation.
“There are certain parameters on the basis of which of it is decided that the moving object is an asteroid. Our teachers were a great help and support,” they say.
One of the prime goals of this campaign is to establish ongoing astronomy research programmes at high schools and colleges.
Participants are able to directly access images from the Astronomical Research Institute on an ongoing basis.