Speaker
Description
Ghana’s Contribution to Planetary Defense through Pan-African Asteroid Search Campaign
Author: GUKUU Bingunmeh Justpa (bingunmeh@gmail.com).
Affiliations: University of Energy and Natural Resources (UENR), Sunyani, Ghana.
ABSTRACT
Planetary defense is now a global concern due to asteroids and other space objects. Asteroid search is a global effort in planetary defense, and Ghana is silent on this course. As part of NASA’s planetary defense program, the asteroid research citizen science project is, where asteroids are monitored in our solar system, not excluding those that have a potential impact on Earth in the future. The aim of this search campaign was to conduct outreach programs to educate Ghanaian students as citizen scientists on asteroid detection for planetary defense through the Pan-African Asteroid Search Campaign. The detection is done using the Astrometrica software from IASC. The International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC) is a leading global educational outreach body that provides high-quality astronomical datasets for citizen scientists to discover asteroids. The Pan-African Citizen Science e-Lab (PACS e-Lab) has been the largest partner of the IASC since December 4, 2020, on the African continent, in recruiting and training citizen scientists in asteroid search campaigns. Over 50 asteroids have been discovered by 60+ African citizen scientists. About 1000 citizen scientists from over 50 countries have been engaged in this project. The PACS e-Lab is set to expand its campaigns to the rest of the continent with the aim of engaging thousands of citizen scientists.
References
The International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC). http://iasc.cosmosearch.org/
Pan-African Citizen Science e-Lab (PACS e-Lab) platform, Africa’s leading hub for Astronomy Research, Education, and Outreach. https://pacselab.space/
Marcel, M. C., Diaby, K. A. A., Guennoun, M., Nabifo, B. R., Elattar, M., Rajaonarivelo, A., & Pius, P. (2024). Pan-African Asteroid Search Campaign: Africa’s Contribution to Planetary Defense [Manuscript under review]
Miller, P., Weryk, R., Wainscoat, R., Perret, J., Hartung, S., Vorobjov, T., ... & Pennypacker, C. (2024). The International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC)—Citizen Scientist System for Asteroid Discovery. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, 136(2), 024502. https://iopscience.iop.org/article/10.1088/1538-3873/ad11a0/meta
Bacu, V., Nandra, C., Sabou, A., Ștefănuț, T., & Gorgan, D. (2023). Assessment of asteroid classification using deep convolutional neural networks. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202308.0047.v1
| Abstract Category | Physics Education |
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