Naming asteroids for the popularisation of astronomy

Details Naming asteroids for the popularisation of astronomy Naming asteroids for the popularisation of astronomy

Jun 2008

adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2008ca07.conf..314n&link_type=abstract

Communicating Astronomy with the Public 2007: Proceedings from the IAU/National Observatory of Athens/ESA/ESO Conference, Athens

Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astronomy

Scientific paper

We give a detailed description of how the naming of asteroids was used as a prize in competitions run by educational institutions and museums. There were two events, one in Venezuela and one in Brazil, which used this as an attractive alternative method for the popularisation of astronomy. The first competition, named Bautizo Espacial (Space Baptism), consisted of scientific stories written by high school students. The second, called Grande Desafio (Big Challenge), was a competition where teams of students were challenged to design and build prototype equipment to fight forest fires. Nationally, both events received wide publicity through newspapers, radio, TV and web pages, reaching many people in both countries. As part of both the events, several activities promoting the public knowledge of astronomy were held. The asteroids that were named in these competitions are just some of the many discovered in a search programme developed by the Group of Theoretical Astrophysics of University of Los Andes in Mérida, Venezuela (Grupo de Astrofisica Teórica de la Universidad de Los Andes) as a mainstream research programme. Finally, Asteroids for the Popularisation of Astronomy has been formally proposed to the IAU as a worldwide programme during the celebration of the International Year of Astronomy in 2009 (IYA2009).

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