IIT-Bombay students help discover closest asteroid to fly by earth
IIT Bombay (File Image)MUMBAI: Three days into a research project, Kritti Sharma, a third-year mechanical engineering student from IIT-Bombay, has already made history, with her colleague, Kunal Deshmukh, a final-year student from metallurgy and materials science department. Deshmukh and Sharma have discovered the closest known asteroid to fly by earth without impacting the planet. The SUV-sized asteroid, designated 2020 QG, travelled 2,950 km above the earth’s surface on Sunday. The earlier record was held by asteroid 2011 CQ1, discovered by the Catalina Sky Survey in 2011, which passed around 5,500 above the earth’s surface.
On Sunday afternoon, the duo were analyzing data from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), California, when they reported five ‘streaks’ in the data as potential asteroids. “The data looked like all other near earth asteroids we have seen so far,” said Deshmukh, who is originally from Pune. “We were sure that those were asteroids, but we had no idea that it would be marked on history!” said Sharma, who is overjoyed to discover the asteroid so early in her research project. “I have always been passionate about astronomy, particularly observational astronomy, which is the primary reason that I took up this project for credit,” said Sharma from Panchkula, Haryana. The ZTF team reported their finding to the International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center, and their findings were confirmed later. The students are part of a larger collaborative project with Caltech. Chen-Yen Hsu, from National Central University in Taiwan, was also the designated scanner on Sunday.
“While Kunal has been working on the project for some time, Kritti has joined us this semester. She was given the background training before joining the project,” said their professor Varun Bhalerao, adding that both the students were from diverse backgrounds. The team is excited about the next phase of studying these objects with the robotic GROWTH-India telescope at Hanle, Ladakh.
The asteroid was not big enough to do any damage to the earth as it was roughly the size of an SUV. ZTF co-investigator Tom Prince, a senior research scientist, in a media statement, said that the asteroid flew close enough to earth that its gravity significantly changed its orbit.
ZTF, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other collaborators, scans the entire northern sky every three nights in search of supernovas, erupting stars, and other objects that otherwise change or move in the sky. As part of a NASA-funded program, ZTF team members search for near-Earth asteroids. When these space rocks speed across the sky, they leave streaks in the ZTF images. Each night, machine-learning programs automatically sort through about one lakh images in search of these streaks, and then narrow down the best asteroid candidates to be followed up by researchers. This results in about 1,000 images that team members and students sort through by eye every day.
On Sunday afternoon, the duo were analyzing data from the Zwicky Transient Facility (ZTF), California, when they reported five ‘streaks’ in the data as potential asteroids. “The data looked like all other near earth asteroids we have seen so far,” said Deshmukh, who is originally from Pune. “We were sure that those were asteroids, but we had no idea that it would be marked on history!” said Sharma, who is overjoyed to discover the asteroid so early in her research project. “I have always been passionate about astronomy, particularly observational astronomy, which is the primary reason that I took up this project for credit,” said Sharma from Panchkula, Haryana. The ZTF team reported their finding to the International Astronomical Union Minor Planet Center, and their findings were confirmed later. The students are part of a larger collaborative project with Caltech. Chen-Yen Hsu, from National Central University in Taiwan, was also the designated scanner on Sunday.
“While Kunal has been working on the project for some time, Kritti has joined us this semester. She was given the background training before joining the project,” said their professor Varun Bhalerao, adding that both the students were from diverse backgrounds. The team is excited about the next phase of studying these objects with the robotic GROWTH-India telescope at Hanle, Ladakh.
The asteroid was not big enough to do any damage to the earth as it was roughly the size of an SUV. ZTF co-investigator Tom Prince, a senior research scientist, in a media statement, said that the asteroid flew close enough to earth that its gravity significantly changed its orbit.
ZTF, funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) and other collaborators, scans the entire northern sky every three nights in search of supernovas, erupting stars, and other objects that otherwise change or move in the sky. As part of a NASA-funded program, ZTF team members search for near-Earth asteroids. When these space rocks speed across the sky, they leave streaks in the ZTF images. Each night, machine-learning programs automatically sort through about one lakh images in search of these streaks, and then narrow down the best asteroid candidates to be followed up by researchers. This results in about 1,000 images that team members and students sort through by eye every day.
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