Kerala (VSK). One of the minor planets circumambulating the sun will hereafter be known in the name of a Keralite, Ashwin Shekhar from Palakkad. International Astronomical Union (IAU) has introduced him as the first Bharatiya ‘meteor scientist’ and named the minor planet after him. The naming was solemnised in an Asteroid, Comets, Meteors Conference held in Arizona, United States, on June 21, 2023.
Minor planet 2000LJ27of 4.5 km diameter found in June 2000 has been named after Ashwin. It will be known as Ashwin Shekhar. Ashwin is the second Keralite to scale this height. Minor planet’s location is in the belt between Mars and Jupiter. It takes 4.19 years to circumambulate the sun once.
Formerly Vainu Bappu, another Keralite, had bagged this honour. Another minor planet was named after this scientist from Thalasserry. Earlier minor planets had been named after Bharaitiya scientists namely Sreenivasa Ramanujan, C.V. Raman, Subramania Chandrashekhar and Vikram Sarabai.
IAU has made it clear that they give this honour to Ashwin Shekhar, thanks to his contribution to the realm of studies on meteors. Ashwin is a member of the meteor study group in the Celestial Mechanical Institute of Paris Observatory. Ashwin is a selected fellow of the London Royal Astronomical Society and a voting member of IAU.
On top of the above memberships, Ashwin is a member of American Astronomical Society and Indian Astronomical Society. He is a member of the 6 member jury to select the winners of Dannie Heineman Prize, jointly instituted by American Astronomical Society and American Institute of Physics.
Ashwin got PhD in Physics, in 2014, from Queen University, Belfast in UK. Later on, he got Post Doctorate, in 2018, from Oslo University, Norway.
Really a honour to Bharat.
