School girls discover asteroid moving towards Earth
Recommended for Preparatory Grades
Two young school girls discover an asteroid! Yes, you read that right. Let’s find out more.
The students, Radhika Lakhani and Vaidehi Vekariya are both in the 10th grade. They are from Surat in Gujarat.
How did the school girls discover the asteroid?
Radhika and Vaidehi were participating in a project organised by SPACE India and the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC). IASC is connected to NASA.
In this project, students were taught to study and identify space objects from images taken by NASA’s Pan-STARRS telescopes. The project aims to involve and educate students in science and astronomy.
The Pan-STARRS telescopes are located at the University of Hawaii in the US.
Radhika and Vaidehi discovered this asteroid in June and received a confirmation on 23 July from NASA. This asteroid is slowly moving toward Earth.
For now, they are calling the asteroid HLV2514. They are looking forward to officially naming the asteroid. Vaidehi also says that she wants to be an astronaut someday.
NASA confirmed Asteroid HLV2514 is currently close to the orbit of Mars. In about a million years, it will change its orbit. Then it will move closer to Earth. But it is not a threat to Earth as it will still be far away.
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