Question: Near Earth Objects (NEOs) or rocky objects are orbiting between the orbits of which of the following planets?
a) Venus and Earth
b) Mars and Jupiter
c) Venus and Mercury
d) None of these
Answer: (b)
Related Facts:-
- As part of a global science programme 18 new asteroids discovered by Indian students.
- The International Astronomical Union (IAU), an organisation which assigns official names and designations to celestial bodies, has recently confirmed the discovery.
- The International Asteroid Discovery Project was conducted by STEM and Space.
- STEM and Space is an organisation working towards the learning of astronomy and space science in India.
- STEM works along with the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC) as part of a NASA citizen science project.
- Over the last two years, 150 students from all around India participated in this two month long campaign to find asteroids.
- Mila Mitra, Co-founder and Academic Head of STEM and Space informed that it was the largest asteroid discovery project in India.
- In the project, the students from India and across the globe analysed the high quality astronomical data provided by IASC.
- IASC is an online scientific program for kids to discover Asteroids and Near Earth Objects (NEO).
- NEOs are rocky objects in an orbit between Mars and Jupiter.
- These rocky objects pose a challenge to Earth, when they ejected out of their orbit and pose a threat of impact
- According to Mitra and her team, NASA has initiated programs like IASC to track such asteroids regularly.
- The programme is also open to citizen scientists and students to enable the discovery and tracking of more asteroids.
- She explained that in the project the students use advanced software analysis.
- These students spend nearly two-three hours each day to look for asteroids and report their findings.
- Of the 372 preliminary asteroids flagged by the students, 18 were finally declared to be provisional or confirmed discoveries of asteroids, Mitra noted.
By- Rajesh Tripathi