Tuks student reaching for the stars

A third-year student at the University of Pretoria (UP) is over the moon after being credited with a provisional asteroid detection that has been catalogued in the International Astronomical Union’s (IAU) Minor Planet Center (MPC) database.

Rorisang Mahomo, 20, says receiving confirmation that her discovery – provisionally named “Main Belt Asteroid 2023 QY50” – has been recognised in the MPC’s database has her feeling “truly happy and in shock”.

The MPC operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory in Massachusetts, USA, and derives its operating budget from a National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) grant.

It typically catalogues around 2,000 provisional asteroid detections per month from thousands of citizen scientists taking part in asteroid search programmes at universities and other organisations around the world.

“Knowing that you discovered a celestial body is a different kind of good news,” Mahomo, who hails from Lesotho, says. “It feels unreal; it became more real when my phone started buzzing non-stop with media from Lesotho reaching out to me.”

What makes Mahomo’s discovery even more special is that she is not an astronomy student or even a student in UP’s Faculty of Natural and Agricultural Sciences (NAS). She’s studying business management in UP’s Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences (EMS).

“My interest in astronomy started when I took a school trip to a planetarium in Bloemfontein. Seeing planets, stars, galaxies, and the solar system really intrigued me, and this sparked my passion for astronomy,” she explains.

Last year, during campaign week on campus, she saw a gazebo with a telescope and space art, and she knew that’s where she had to be.

“Their posters had words like physics, chemistry, astronomy, and mathematics, and I thought only people in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) were eligible to join.”

However, when she asked if someone like her from EMS could join, they warmly said yes and that she would learn “while in the society.”

That society was Blue Crane Space (BCS), a student-led group within UP that focuses on engineering (aerospace), pure mathematics, astronomy, and astro/physics, chemistry, and theoretical physics.

Keketso Qhomane, Chairperson of BCS, says Mahomo’s success was enabled and encouraged by UP’s strong focus on transdisciplinary research and collaboration.

“The BCS aims to foster innovative ideas among university students and is also a platform for non-BSc students to gain more experience in astronomy and broader science topics in proportion to their relative fields, whether in marketing, finance, multimedia, or any other subject matter,” Qhomane said.

Mahomo’s discovery was made possible by BCS’s participation in the International Astronomical Search Collaboration’s (IASC) Asteroid Search, an initiative of NASA’s Planetary Defense programme.

The IASC provides software and high-resolution astronomical images from professional observatories to citizen scientists around the world, who use the software to analyse the images in search of objects that could be asteroids.

“I downloaded the datasets and immediately started searching using the Astrometrica programme. I identified a movement that matched the description provided by the IASC, and that was the first thing that gave me a bit of certainty that it might be one, even before going deeper into the technical process. I submitted my report [to the IASC via the Minor Planet Center] that same night.”

Just over a year later, she received a confirmatory certificate from the IASC, including the provisional name for her asteroid: 2023 QY50. “It took a whole minute for me to process the news; thinking about how big of a deal this was and that I actually contributed to space science and created new research for scientists,” she said.

Professor Chris Theron of the Physics Department in UP’s NAS Faculty applauded Mahomo, Qhomane, and the BCS for encouraging collaborative research across schools and disciplines.

“It is heartening to receive the news of Keketso, BCS, and Rorisang’s achievements. Their collaboration and success will hopefully inspire students across the country to take part in exciting initiatives like asteroid search programmes,” he said.

He added that every contribution of time and effort can lead to discoveries that expand the boundaries of our collective knowledge. Heystek Grobler, a part-time lecturer in UP’s Physics Department who served in an advisory role to the BCS, meanwhile said, “Rorisang’s remarkable achievement in discovering the asteroid 2023 QY50 is a shining example of what passion and interdisciplinary collaboration can achieve.” He added that he is thrilled to see the profound impact of Blue Crane Space, an exceptional student-led initiative, in fostering such breakthroughs.

Qhomane meanwhile said that Mahomo will, as the person who discovered it, be allowed to rename 2023 QY50 – a bit further down the line. “Rorisang’s discovery has been named a provisional asteroid detection, which means the MPC recognises it as a potential asteroid discovery but requires additional observations,” he said.

He explained that over the next three to five years, further observations will be performed to determine the asteroid’s orbit and trajectory and gather more data on it. After those follow-up observations, a final confirmation stage happens. The discovery is then officially recognised by the International Astronomical Union, and then it is named by the discoverer.

“I am thinking of giving it my name. Scientists usually name their discoveries and theories after themselves, so I think it would be iconic for me to name my first discovery after myself to honour one of my biggest achievements,” Mahomo, who’s set to graduate at UP’s Autumn Graduations in April/May 2025, said.