Speaker
Description
As a Scientific Officer at the NASRDA Center for Basic Space Science, a branch of the Nigerian Space Agency, my position has enabled me to engage in collaborative astronomical research with international groups, including the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC) and the Pan-African Citizen Science e-Lab (PACS e-Lab). I joined these groups in 2021 and have been actively participating in asteroid research, which led to the discovery of Asteroid 2021-PR160.
The research involves analyzing astronomical data collected by the Panoramic Survey Telescope & Rapid Response System (Pan-STARRS) (Chambers et al., 2016), based at the Institute for Astronomy at the University of Hawaii, and the Catalina Sky Survey (CSS) (Larson et al., 2003), based at the Lunar & Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona. These telescopes utilize automated pipelines to detect asteroids. However, faint asteroids with low signal-to-noise ratios sometimes evade detection by these pipelines (Miller et al., 2024), necessitating manual analysis.
The datasets from these surveys are provided to IASC, where citizen scientists at PACS e-Lab assist in identifying asteroids using the Astrometrica program. My role has involved meticulous data analysis to identify and confirm potential asteroid candidates.
During my talk at the AfAS 2025 conference, I will present the step-by-step process of this research, from data acquisition to the eventual discovery of Asteroid 2021-PR160.
| Stream | Education Development and Outreach |
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