Shiv Nadar School Gurgaon - Asteroid Discovery Programme

Teddy Roosevelt said, “Keep your eyes on the stars, and your feet on the ground”. Our middle and senior students did just that. With their feet firmly planted on the ground, they eyed the stars and their ilk. This was the Asteroid Discovery Program of the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC), a joint venture of STEM and NASA (STEM & Space). An enabling opportunity for students to explore high quality real astronomical data and look for asteroids. Students received astronomy data from observatories in real-time and were guided to use the software to analyse the data and discover new asteroids. These preliminary discoveries are only the first discovery of an asteroid, it takes about a year of observations before a few are confirmed as provisional discoveries and are formally recorded. A team with 16 students and a mentor-teacher participated in this programme and made several preliminary discoveries. The enthusiasm was palpable in their diligence and hard work as they broke up into smaller groups to post discoveries of about 30 asteroids over a period of a month. This excellent performance and contribution were appreciated by NASA in the form of certificates. Photo: https://www.esa.int/ESA_Multimedia/Images/2011/10/Space_Situational_Awareness_-_Near_Earth_Objects