Pranav and Dhivakar II B.Sc. Physics ( 2016-19 batch) By Pranav and Dhivakar II B.Sc. Physics ( 2016-19 batch)

credits http://www.astronomy.com/news/sky-events/2017/06/asteroid- day http://earthsky.org/space/international-asteroid-day-june-30 Thanks to V.C.Malik’s article on Indian asteroids. WWW.ASIPOEC.IN https://www.iiap.res.in/.

What is asteroid day? Asteroid Day is a global awareness campaign to help people learn about asteroids and what we can do to protect our planet from asteroid impacts.

Why do we study asteroids? They will help us understand more about the origin of life. They may someday threaten to collide with Earth. The amount of mineral wealth in the asteroids (and comets) is staggering.

Asteroid researches in India The East India Company resolved to establish an observatory at Madras for promoting the knowledge of astronomy, geography and navigation in India. Norman Pogson, who was the Government Astronomer in the Madras Observatory (the institution to which IIA traces its origin), had discovered no less than five asteroids from Madras between 1861 and 1885.

Vainu bappu observatory telescope kavalur

Observatory

Project kalki In January 1987, when Professor Bhattcharyya was the Director of IIA and Professor Menon, the Chairman of the IIA Council, Project Kalki was launched to survey and discover asteroids, comets and the elusive tenth planet of the Solar System.

Gehrels of the University of Arizona, an authority on solar system objects, who was visiting IIA in connection with the bicentennial celebrations of the institute. A 45-cm Schmidt telescope at the Vainu Bappu Observatory was used for the survey. During the few years that Project Kalki was in operation, it discovered a total of six asteroids.

The new asteroid, 1988 DQ1, was subsequently followed at VBO and a total of five positions were reported to the Minor Planet Center. The asteroid was recovered close to its predicted position (based on an orbit calculation programme developed by R. Vasundhara in IIA) on plates taken at VBO by Moorthy in May 1989. The asteroid was named Ramanujan after the great mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan

Another five asteroids, discovered between 1988 and 1990 under the same project, were reported by Rajamohan to the Minor Planet Center and these were assigned the temporary names - 1988 DR, 1989 CD4, 1988 CA, 1988 BX and 1990 BC2

  Two of these, (4706) 1988 DR and (5178) 1989 CD4 were named Dennisreuter (M. P. C. 52766, 28 Sept. 2004) and Pattazhy (M. P. C. 56611, 2006 Apr. 13) respectively, after Dennis C. Reuter, a physical chemist in NASA, USA, and Sainudeen Pattazhy, an environmental scientist in India.

In May 2008, R Rajamohan proposed that the asteroid (8348) 1988 BX (M In May 2008, R Rajamohan proposed that the asteroid (8348) 1988 BX (M. P. C. 1998 Mar. 13) and the asteroid (7564) 1988 CA (M. P. C. 1997 Apr. 22) be named 'Bhattacharyya' and 'Gokumenon' respectively, after Professor J C Bhattacharyya and Professor M G K Menon for their support and encouragement to Project Kalki.

Sainudeen Pattazhy Bhattacharyya Gokumenon

In August 2008, Rajamohan's proposal received official approval by CSBN of IAU. (See M. P. C. 636 'Gokumenon' and 'Bhattacharyya' now join Ramanujan (4130), Vainu Bappu (2596), Mrinalini (2986) and Sarabhai (2987), among the asteroids in the sky named after distinguished Indians.