Meet the Meteor Scientist From Kerala Who Has a Minor Planet Named After Him

This comes at a time when meteor scientists are gearing up to watch the Perseid meteor showers on 12 August.

How did Dr Aswin, who hails from Ottappalam, a small town in Kerala's Palakkad district, come to bag such a rare honour? As is befitting, his story begins with night skies and some stargazing…

(Photo: Chetan Bhakuni/The Quint)

Some 600 million kilometres from the earth, along the Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter, lies a minor planet, which is about 4.5 km in diameter and takes about 4.2 years to go around the sun.

What's so special about it, you ask? This minor planet (which is essentially an asteroid) called '33928 Aswinsekhar' has been named after a meteor scientist from India – who, perhaps, is the only such professional scientist in the country and among a few hundred in the world.

"You can rest assured that this minor planet would never hit the earth," quips 38-year-old Dr Aswin Sekhar, who was bestowed the honour by the International Astronomical Union (IAU), alongside three other Indian scientists, in June this year.

"The IAU names an asteroid after a human being only if it has no chance of hitting the earth. If you name it after someone, and it crashes on the earth some 50 years later, then that's just really bad PR."

Dr Aswin Sekhar

Astrophysicist Ashok Kumar Verma, astronomer Kumar Venkataramani, and planetary scientist Rutu Parekh are the other three Indian scientists whose work was similarly recognised by the IAU.

To put things into perspective, they join the likes of CV Raman, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Vikram Sarabhai, and Vainu Bappu, who also have their names etched in the cosmos.

But how did Dr Aswin, who hails from Ottappalam, a small town in Kerala's Palakkad district, come to bag such a rare honour? As is befitting, his story begins with night skies and some stargazing…

'A Doctor Who Can't Prescribe Medicines!'

"When I was a boy – this was in the 80s and 90s – the night skies above my town were as pristine as they could get. There were no city lights, there was no pollution. I remember gazing at the skies at night and wondering what secrets they held," Dr Aswin tells The Quint.

Interestingly, Dr Aswin grew up in a family of doctors. "While my parents were treating patients, I was reading Stephen Hawking, Carl Sagan, and Charles Darwin. And I turned out to be one of those non-useful doctors in the family, who can't really prescribe any medicines," he chuckles.

Dr Aswin completed his PhD in physics from Belfast University in 2014 – and he did his post-doctorate in celestial mechanics in 2018 from the University of Oslo, Norway.

He currently works as a scientist in the meteor science team at the Institute of Celestial Mechanics in the Paris Observatory, which comes under the Education, Research, and Technology Ministry of the French government.

Dr Aswin's work involves trying to understand the smallest particles in astronomy, namely meteor particles. "These are essentially dust particles which originate from comets," he explains.

"What usually happens is that when a comet comes closer to the sun, because of the high temperature, they vapourise. Some of these dust particles can then intersect."

Dr Aswin Sekhar

His team, essentially, maps the trajectory of these particles as they may pose a threat to satellites, spacecraft, and astronauts in space.

What's in a Name?

The IAU Nomenclature Committee, which named the minor planet after Dr Aswin during a conference in Arizona, USA, in a statement, said:

"Aswin Sekhar (b. 1985) is the first professional meteor astronomer from India in modern times. He has made important contributions to the field of meteors in meteoroid stream dynamics, particularly in the effects of relativity and resonances in meteoroid streams."

The asteroid was discovered in 2000 by the Lowell Observatory in the region.

"It was a big shock for me. I didn't really expect it because I come from the smallest field in astrophysics – meteor science. Our field is not known for getting big funding or big prizes. We are not a community in the scientific world which has a lot of clout or influence."

Dr Aswin Sekhar

Dr Aswin's nomination was what one would call a non-ceremonial one as there are two ways by which a celestial body, like a minor planet, can be named after a person.

"A ceremonial nomination means the person who discovered a new asteroid gets naming rights; they can name it after themselves or someone they admire. A non-ceremonial one, like mine, is when the person's name is nominated in a very discreet process. The IAU would assess the person's work and approve the nomination if they deem it fit," he explains.

Dr Aswin tells The Quint that this recognition couldn't come at a better time, as meteor scientists all over the world are gearing up to watch the Perseid meteor showers on 12 August.

It was his team that discovered the "rare gravitational dance between the Perseids, Saturn, and Jupiter," which would make Perseids one of the best showers in recent memory, on an astronomical scale.

'Need More Funds'

"The general perception in India is: why do we need to study these objects? Are they really that important? You don't really read about asteroids in newspapers every day," Dr Aswin says.

He adds that while it is true that a celestial event may not happen as frequently as many other things on the earth, which may have immediate consequences, "when it happens, the scale is so different."

"Sixty-six million years ago, a whole species of dinosaurs went extinct when an asteroid hit. That changed the whole dynamics of the life cycle on the earth," he explains.

Dr Aswin argues that such studies must, therefore, be funded by countries, irrespective of boundaries, as it affects everyone on the planet.

"Sometimes when you go to policymakers, they would argue that there are other important and immediate things happening on the earth. They would ask us why they should think about asteroids at all. But if we don't have the right tech and research, in the event that something happens, we will be unprepared."

"These things don't just happen in a Hollywood movie. They actually do happen, but not as often. And at a time when countries and private players are investing a lot in space, the need for these studies is more important than ever," he adds.