When Nicole Oliveira was just starting to walk, she would reach out to the sky to try and catch the stars. At eight years old, this Brazilian girl is already a seasoned astronomer who hunts asteroids. On the walls of his room, in Fortaleza (northeast), no posters of the stars of the song, but a large map of the solar system. On a shelf, a blonde doll looks a bit lost among miniature rockets and Star Wars figures.
But his hunting ground is the computer with two large screens installed not far from his bed. This is where “Nicolinha”, as she is affectionately known, scrutinizes images of the sky sent by the “Asteroid Hunters” program. This project aimed at introducing young people to science by directly involving them in discoveries is a partnership between the Brazilian Ministry of Science and the International Cooperation for Astronomical Research (IASC), an organization affiliated with NASA.
“She really has the eye”
“I have already found 18!”, Said with undisguised pride to theAFP this little girl with long dark brown hair and a voice that rises very high in the treble. If her findings are approved – which may take several years – she will become the youngest in the world to officially discover an asteroid, smashing the record of 18-year-old Italian Luigi Sannino. She can then baptize them. “I will give them the names of Brazilian scientists, or members of my family, like my mom or my dad,” she says.
“She really has the eye. She immediately spots the points in the images that look like asteroids and often advises her classmates when they are not sure they have really found any, ”explains Heliomarzio Rodrigues Moreira, her astronomy teacher at the school that she has been attending since the beginning of the year. “The most important thing is that she shares her knowledge with other children. It contributes to the dissemination of science, ”he adds.
Nicolinha has indeed become a small celebrity, thanks to her videos on astronomy for her Youtube channel and her online participation in international scientific seminars. She even has an assistant – a friend of the family – to help her answer all requests.
“Mom, give me a star”
In January, her parents did not hesitate to move from Maceio, another city in northeastern Brazil, to Fortaleza, 1,000 km away, for their daughter to receive a scholarship at a renowned institution. The company of his father, a computer scientist, accepted that he remains in telework. “When she was two years old, she would raise her arms to the sky and ask me: ‘Mom, give me a star’,” says her mother, Zilma Janaka, 43, who works in the craft industry.
“But we understood that this passion for astronomy was serious when she asked us for a telescope as a birthday present for her four years. I didn’t even really know what a telescope was, ”she adds. The precocity of Nicolinha even pushed the organizers of initiation courses to astronomy to lower the minimum age for registrations, often reserved for over 12 years.
On her Youtube channel, the girl interviewed figures like the famous astronomer Duilia de Mello, who took part in important discoveries like the supernova SN 1997D. Last year, she traveled to Brasilia to meet with the Minister of Science, ex-astronaut Marcos Pontes, the only Brazilian to date to have been to space. “My dream is to become an aerospace engineer. I want to build rockets. I would love to go to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida to see their rockets ”.
(The essential / afp)
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