Daksh Malik, a ninth-grade student at Shiv Nadar School in Noida, has gained recognition from NASA for his provisional discovery of an asteroid, currently designated as ‘2023 OG40.’ This remarkable achievement also allows Daksh the exciting opportunity to name the asteroid after it undergoes a verification process, which may take approximately four to five years.
Sharing his passion for space, Daksh expressed to The Print, “I’ve always been captivated by space…I would watch countless documentaries on National Geographic about planets and the solar system. This feels like a dream come true.”
For the past year and a half, Daksh and two of his classmates have been involved in the International Asteroid Discovery Project (IADP). They learned about this incredible opportunity through an email from their school’s astronomy club, which connected them with the International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC). This initiative, affiliated with NASA, encourages individuals worldwide—including students—to participate in asteroid discovery.
Daksh described the process as a “fun exercise,” which involved downloading datasets from IASC, calibrating them with Astronomica software, and analyzing celestial objects for movements and light emissions indicative of asteroids. “I felt like I was working at NASA,” he humorously remarked.
Although over 6,000 participants join the IADP each year, only a select few manage to discover new asteroids. Prior to Daksh, only five other Indian students had successfully named an asteroid.
