Meet Kerala astronomer Aswin Sekhar, whose name shines bright on an asteroid

The International Astronomical Union, earlier this year, named a minor planet after Indian meteor astronomer Aswin Sekhar

Growing up in Cherpulassery, a small town in Palakkad, Kerala, in the ‘90s, Aswin Sekhar had access to pristine night skies. Light pollution was less. So, staring at the vast expanse of stars overhead, twinkling like precious gems, left an indelible mark on young Aswin’s impressionable mind. Back then, he did not know a celestial object would bear his name in the future.

In June, the International Astronomical Union (IAU) named an asteroid after Aswin, 38, to honour his contribution to the field of meteors in meteoroid stream dynamics. The asteroid, discovered in 2000 by the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search programme (funded by NASA), will be called (33928) Aswinsekhar = 2000 LJ27. 

Aswin apart, three other Indians — astronomer Kumar Venkataramani, senior flight dynamics engineer Ashok K. Verma, and planetary geologist Rutu Parekh — also had asteroids named after them. They join an elite group of Indian scientists like Srinivasa Ramanujan, Subramanyan Chandrasekhar, CV Raman, Vikram Sarabhai, and Vainu Bappu, who have had the same honour. Other eminent Indians like Mohandas Gandhi, Rabindranath Tagore and Viswanathan Anand also have minor planets named after them. But that is through a “ceremonial nomenclature”, wherein the discoverer of the celestial body can name it after the IAU nomenclature committee’s approval. In the “non-ceremonial nomenclature”, accomplished individuals in the field of astrophysics nominate a fellow scientist for the IAU’s consideration to have a minor planet named in their honour. Aswin and the other Indians were honoured through the second process.

The news of this naming was an overwhelming and pleasant surprise for Aswin. “The recognition was particularly significant as my expertise lies in meteor sciences, an area considered niche even within the broader field of astrophysics,” he says. “Most attention tends to gravitate towards cosmology, stellar physics, or solar physics, which boasts a much larger community of professionals. This recognition by the IAU felt like a tribute to the legacy of meteor scientists who came before me and those who diligently worked in the field despite lacking acknowledgement.”

A full circle

Two celestial events sparked Aswin’s interest in studying the sky. The first one was the appearance of the Halle-Bopp comet in 1997. “I visited my uncle posted in the Assam rifles in Nagaland, Kohima. And I remember seeing this beautiful comet. The sky was spectacular,” he recalls. 

The second one was the 1999 Leonid meteor shower. Krishna Warrier, a former scientist at C-DAC Research Center in Thiruvananthapuram, had asked him to watch it. The sight of the celestial fireworks left an indelible mark on young Aswin’s mind. But there is also a bit of serendipity to this scientist’s story. “Years later, around 2010, as I ventured on my academic journey, I found myself under the guidance of renowned Scottish astrophysicist Dr David Asher for my PhD studies. Dr Asher was the one who predicted the meteor shower I witnessed back in 1999!” he says. It is tempting to say the stars were aligned in Aswin’s case.