Chennai: Four students from Chennai have discovered three asteroids during the astronomy campaign held nationwide from July 26 to August 23 this year.
Viswath Ramachandran, a class nine student, and Vishweshwar Ramanakumar, a class 10 student from Hiranandani upscale school in Egattur in Kelambakkam have discovered two asteroids. These asteroids are designated as 2016 OL4P10w65E and 2016PR2P10w89g.
T. Kishore Kumar and Siva Magadev both studying class 11 in Shri Natesan Vidyasala Matriculation Higher Secondary School in Mannivakkam discovered another asteroid, which is designated as 2016 OP4 P10w65D.
“We thoroughly enjoyed it and would like to pursue programmes in space science,” Viswath and Visweshwar said.
“The provisional discovery has been confirmed and formally recognised as asteroid discovery,” said S. Venkata Narayanan, south zonal business manager, Space.
The Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (Space) acts as the nodal agency for organising asteroid search campaign and provide training to students and amateur astronomers for asteroid hunting. It is part of International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC) programme.
Totally, 90 teams from all over India and three teams from Chennai participated in the asteroid hunting.
The participants got access to the images of the sky taken by 24-inch and 34-inch telescopes positioned in Astronomical Research Institute (ARI) Observatory in the United States.
