COSMIC enthusiasts in the kingdom are preparing for another campaign to find asteroids and register them officially under the name of Bahrain … until they are given new identities by the global body responsible for designating the roaming rocks.
Bahrain Stargazers, an astronomy club founded in 2016, have so far discovered eight new asteroids orbiting the cosmic belt between Jupiter and Mars.
“We discovered the first six asteroids in 2021, and pinned them under the Bahrain Stargazers team name,” said the club’s founder, managing director and the national outreach co-ordinator in Bahrain for the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Myriam Alqassab. “We also ended up discovering two more in April of this year.”
The process is first initiated by signing up in the International Asteroid Search Campaign (IASC) to participate in the citizen science programme that provides high quality astronomical data to curious scientists around the world.
“The campaign is a month-long event in which teams all over the world search for asteroids by analysing fresh sets of images taken by the Pan-STARRS telescope in Hawaii using the Astrometrica software,” the 33-year-old added.
Analysed
Ms Alqassab said members start analysing the pictures taken by the telescope by using a method known as ‘blinking’ in which four frames are stacked together to see if there are any movements in the belt.
The movement is measured by studying the saturation, flux, movement, shape and speed of the object.
“We would finish one set in an hour, or sometimes as long as three hours,” she added.
“We basically have to identify if that moving object is an asteroid because not all moving objects can be labelled as one,” she added. “They mustn’t be confused by satellites, comets or cosmic rays and, of course, possibly a camera glitch!
“After that we send our report to IASC for verification. Currently all eight of our asteroids have been placed under its preliminary list as they await naming approval, a process that can take up to three years to be approved by the IAU.”
Bahrain Stargazers was launched after Ms Alqassab started her path in astronomy in 2016, walking away from her previous profession as a reservation and revenue agent for hotels. “I decided to take the step to provide astronomy activities in the country,” Ms Alqassab explained.
“When the club officially launched, we gained more than 80 applications in the first month alone.”
Aside from astronomical activities, Bahrain Stargazers have been adamant in raising awareness about the excessive use of obtrusive artificial light all over Bahrain.
“After forming the club, it dawned on me that we do not have many areas in Bahrain where we can just go outside and enjoy the dark sky,” Ms Alqassab added.
She expressed how currently there are only two spots in Bahrain where it is slightly feasible to observe the stars, being the Hawar Island and Nurana Island, with the rest of Bahrain drowning in light pollution making it near impossible to look at the cosmos even with the aid of a telescope.
“An excess of light pollution can have negative impacts on our eyesight and sleeping patterns, in addition to being harmful to birds, frogs, turtles, and insects,” Ms Alqassab said.
“As a result, we have contributed to seminars and workshops dedicated to tackling this issue in Bahrain.”
Currently the club houses 90 members from a variety of nationalities and ages. They often regularly spend a couple of hours observing the sky, especially if there are any interesting astronomical events scheduled, such as observing a meteor shower.
Eight members of the club, including Ms Alqassab, are set to join IASC for the next campaign which will kick-start on July 24 till the end of August, with doors open for registration for the following campaign in September too.
Earlier this week, excited club members gathered to view the first amazing colour images taken and released by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST), alongside discussing what was observed and the instruments and techniques the telescope utilised to take the images of galaxies spanning light years away.
To take part in any of the club activities, visit stargazersbh.wixsite.com/bsac.
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