Pedro Machado is now the godfather of an asteroid that gravitates between Mars and Jupiter. It was called “2001 QL160” but was renamed “32599 Pedromachado”. The researcher is the third Portuguese to achieve this distinction. For him, the tribute is “an act of love.”
The day began to shine the moment Pedro Machado received a phone call. “I answered and they told me ‘your name is currently shining in the sky’. I thought it was a joke,” the researcher confesses to TSF.
“It was a great surprise and an act of love from my colleagues, because several of my colleagues from Italy, France, Spain and the United States of America were the signatories of the proposal for this tribute,” says Pedro Machado, who does not know anything. until the news reaches me.
The researcher is still “a little stunned” by the “happy” news. Now called 32599 Pedro Machado, it orbits between Mars and Jupiter, receives very little sunlight, and is about three kilometers in diameter. Because of its size, it joined the ranks of celestial bodies that are entitled to a name.
In addition to the name, the study of the asteroid “has a radical importance,” explains the astronomer. Through this research it is possible to explore “what existed in the formation of the solar system, based on its constitution, its chemical or morphological characteristics.”
In addition, Pedro Machado considers that these small bodies usually function as “small spaceships”. This is because asteroids, when they collide with a planet, “carry materials or water, or some elements that are important for the future, the evolution of planets, maybe even life itself.”
The possibilities are immense and for eternity the name of a Portuguese will shine in the heavens.
Pedro Machado is a researcher at the Institute of Astrophysics and Space Sciences, as well as a professor at the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon. This is the third Portuguese named after an asteroid, after Nuno Peixinho and Pedro Lacerda.
Source: TSF
