Indian Schoolgirls Find Asteroid Shifting Orbit Towards Earth
ASTEROID HEADED FOR EARTH – Two 10th grader Indian schoolgirls find an asteroid that was slowly shifting orbit toward earth.
Currently, the Earth is still experiencing a global pandemic that has infected over 17 million people. Now, a new development indicated that an asteroid was heading towards the planet.
Radhika Lakhani and Vaidehi Vekariya were simply working on a school project. But, to their surprise, their study became of utmost importance as they discovered an asteroid heading for earth which they named HLV2514.
According to an article from CNN, the girls were from Surat, the western Indian state of Gujarat. Furthermore, they participated in joint collaboration between Space India and NASA project. Through the project, students could analyze images captured from a telescope placed at the University of Hawaii.
Meanwhile, Aakash Dwivedi, the senior astronomer educator at Space India said the students were taught to identify celestial bodies using software. Moreover, the students could then analyze the images as they searched for moving objects in the photographs.
As per the article, Dwivendi stated:
We started the project in June and we sent back our analysis a few weeks ago to NASA. On July 23, they sent us an email confirming that we had identified a near-Earth object
However, people of earth still have little incentives for worry as the asteroid was said to be close to Mars’ orbit. Additionally, Dwivedi explained that the asteroid would change its orbit in about 1 million years and move closer to Earth.
Additionally, the astronomer explained that when that happens, the distance between the asteroid and the planet would still be 10x the distance between the Earth and Moon.
Like this article? READ ALSO: NASA Football Field-Sized Balloon To Be Sent To Study Star Formations
