Two government school teachers from Ariyalur district have added pride to Tamil Nadu for classifying as many as 18 meteorites for which the duo has been honoured by NASA.

Kavitha and Girija are working as teachers in Idayathankudi Panchayat Union Middle School and Karuppur Senathipathi Panchayat Union Middle School respectively. The duo was involved in the activity of detecting the moving meteorites in July. The two teachers were part of a group of 23 teachers from Tamil Nadu who attended a training session organized as part of the citizen science programme in collaboration with NASA at Bengaluru.

Meanwhile, NASA’s Hubble Telescope on the island of Haiti has been capturing images of meteorites coming towards earth during nights and apparently sends them to scientists for studying moving photographs, locate the meteorites and so on. The teachers trained in this method examined the photographs taken with the Hubble Telescope and found 40 different moving objects and submitted the thesis to the citizen science programme. The teachers’ research report has been sent to NASA for further study.

Preliminary research has revealed the presence of 18 meteorites among the 40 identified objects. If they are examined and confirmed by NASA scientists, the moving meteorites will be given the name of the teachers’. The duo who submitted research reports on meteorites has also been awarded the certificate of ‘People’s Scientist’.

Subsequently, the teachers said that they would be given the opportunity to form a team of school students on a regular basis and discover meteorites with them so that students could be involved in the project and develop their interest in science. Ariyalur District Education Official (DEO) personally felicitated the two teachers for discovering meteorites.

Speaking to News18, the duo said that filing this kind of researches has led to the idea of ​​engaging in more space research, and thus we will learn about the impact of meteorites and their lifespan. ‘We will take steps to involve students in such researches in the near future,’ the duo said in a proud tone.​

Read all the Latest News, Breaking News and Coronavirus News here