Bulgarian Astronomers Make Asteroid Discoveries

Another Bulgarian groups founded on the name of Vassil Levski probably Bulgaria’s most famous hero of the past. These Bulgarian astronomers are certainly very active and making inroads and making pioneering discoveries en route in the space they view above. The clear unpolluted Bulgarian skies at night give a good base in which to observe.

Image by ehartwell via Flickr

Bulgarian astronomers from the Bulgarian observatory "Stellar Society - A79" found seven new asteroids during an expedition to the Yundola area, 16 kilometers northwest of the southern city of Velingrad, local media reported Wednesday.

The Minor Planet Center with the International Astronomical Union (Harvard, United States) has confirmed the asteroids and given them temporary designations.

The planetary bodies, which are in the Capricornus constellation, have diameters of between 0.7 and 1.7 kilometers and orbit the Sun between Mars and Jupiter for between 3.9 and 5.7 earth years.

One of the asteroids designated as 2009 OW2 belongs to a rare class of bodies called the Nysas family, situated on the fringes of the main asteroid belt near Mars.

For the last four years astronomers of the "Stellar Society - A79" observatory, headed by Filip Fratev, have found 16 asteroids and in March 2009 one of the bodies was named after Bulgarian freedom fighter Vassil Levski.

Source: www.news.xinhuanet.com