Notice to budding astronomers. While an asteroid will pass right in front of a star, NASA calls on the French equipped with a telescope and who live in an area between the Basque Country and the Belgian border to carefully observe the sky during the night from Saturday to Sunday.
In Lot-et-Garonne, after discovering the ad, Corinne Yahia and her friends began setting up their lookout at Allons. They prepare meticulously, equipped with an application that allows them to know the orientation of their telescope. And precision is essential: it is about not missing the passage of the asteroid Eurybate that will hide a star for only ten seconds, around 4 in the morning.
If this phenomenon, which is called an “occultation”, is not rare, this event has its importance since a space probe is on its way to Eurybate. Therefore, NASA calls on all amateur astronomers who meet the conditions of equipment and location to collect as much data as possible.
The data will then be sent to NASA.
At the end of the experiment, the French Astronomy Association must centralize the data collected by these amateur observers.
“Once collected, this information will be sent to NASA, which will properly calibrate the orbit of this asteroid, see if it has a satellite, which we suspect, find out its shape, see if it is a peanut, a ball, a square…” Corine lists. Yahia, president of the Astronomie Gironde 33 association.
“Collaborating with professionals is ideal for us. It is developing more and more, that is very good”, he confesses to BFMTV.
Source: BFM TV
