Two Class X students from a government school near Coimbatore have identified two asteroids as part of the US-based International Astronomical Search Collaboration, of which the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) is a partner.
P. Prameesha and Swetha Rangaraj, students of the Government Higher Secondary School in Othakkalmandapam, participated in the Tamil Nadu Asteroid Search Campaign, which was organised in association with Vigyan Prasar, an autonomous organisation under the Department of Science and Technology, Government of India.
The school's headmaster G. Ramesh said on Friday the two students participated in the campaign on behalf of Trichy Astro Club from January 28 to February 22 this year. The students were initially part of Kovai Astro Club that identified their aptitude and sent them for this programme, according to Mr. Ramesh, who is the club's president.
“We enrolled in the training programme in July 2021,” Prameesha told The Hindu on Friday. The two were made to identify asteroids by the Trichy Astro Club using pre-discovered slides through a software named Astrometrica and the training programme was held every Sunday through videoconferencing, Swetha said.
After nearly six months of training, the students said they were selected in the Tamil Nadu Asteroid Search Campaign, in which the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) from Hawaii would send images of asteroids in space for participants to identify correctly. Prameesha and Swetha identified two asteroids correctly, following which they received certificates from the International Astronomical Search Collaboration for their “valuable contributions to observations of near-Earth objects and Main Belt asteroids by participating in the analysis of images from Pan-STARRS.”
Mr. Ramesh said that the two students met District Collector G.S. Sameeran on Thursday and that he appreciated their efforts. “We requested him to provide a telescope for our school,” he said, for which the Collector assured us to provide necessary assistance.
S. Sailakshmi, a science teacher from the Government Higher Secondary School in Othakkalmandapam and secretary of Kovai Astro Club, said the achievement of Prameesha and Swetha would encourage more school students from Coimbatore to engage with astronomy. “We are ready to guide them in the field of astrophysics,” she said.
