Noida boy, 14, picked by NASA to name asteroid he ‘discovered’

Daksh Malik, a Class 9 pupil from Shiv Nadar School in Noida, has received recognition from the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for a ‘provisional asteroid discovery,’ allowing him to choose a permanent name for the asteroid. Currently, the asteroid is referred to as ‘2023 OG40,’ reflecting the year it was discovered.

For a year and a half, Malik and two of his classmates had been searching for asteroids as part of the International Asteroid Discovery Project (IADP). They received this chance in 2022, when their school’s astronomy club dispatched an email concerning the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC).

Through the IASC, a citizen science initiative linked to NASA, individuals – including students – globally have the opportunity to ‘uncover’ asteroids for the American space agency. The IADP, which is executed by the STEM & Space organization in collaboration with the IASC, engages more than 6,000 participants annually from across the globe, though only a handful manage to find new asteroids.

The IASC website mentions that prior to Daksh, five Indian students had successfully identified a named asteroid. In what Malik referred to as a ‘fun exercise,’ the trio, similar to other participants, needed to download datasets from IASA, calibrate them using Astronomica software, and then look for any celestial objects potentially being asteroids.

Furthermore, they needed to remain vigilant for any type of motion in the object, as well as verify whether the light it emitted was within the threshold for asteroids. He mentioned that NASA will need 4-5 years to conduct preliminary tests and finalize their verification for the asteroid, and only after that will he be able to name it.  The boy thinks of names like ‘World’s Destroyer’ and ‘Countdown.’