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The Rigakubu News

Disclaimer: machine translated by DeepL which may contain errors.

Dr. Jin Beniyama, Department of Astronomy, received the 41st Inoue Research Award for Young Scientists

Shigeyuki Sako, Associate Professor, Institute of Astronomy

 



Dr. jin Beniyama

Dr. Hitoshi Beniyama, a Research Fellow of the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS), Department of Astronomy, received the 41st Inoue Research Encouragement Award.

While a student at the Department of Astronomy, Graduate School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Dr. Beniyama conducted several research projects on near-Earth asteroids. Near-Earth asteroids are observed as fast-moving celestial objects in the sky because they have orbits close to the Earth. They sometimes collide with the earth and affect our society. Therefore, they have attracted attention in recent years from the viewpoints of elucidating the origin of water and life on Earth, mitigating damage caused by meteorite impacts, and elucidating the transport mechanisms of materials in the solar system. Using the 1.05 m Schmidt Telescope operated by the Kiso Observatory of the Graduate School of Science of The University of Tokyo, Dr. Beniyama conducted a wide-area survey of the sky in visible light with the aim of discovering asteroids that pass near the Earth. He developed an analysis pipeline using machine learning models and a follow-up observation system, and succeeded in independently discovering more than 50 near-Earth asteroids during his graduate studies. Furthermore, Dr. Beniyama was the first in the world to clarify the existence of an upper limit to the distribution of rotation velocities of near-Earth asteroids. In addition, as the Principal Investigator, Dr. Kohyama has obtained many observation hours on domestic and international telescopes, and as the leader of a campaign observation using multiple telescopes, he has united collaborators to produce many results. These achievements were highly evaluated and led to the award this time.

After receiving his degree, Dr. Beniyama has been a visiting scientist at The Laboratoire Lagrange, Observatoire de la Côte d'Azur, where he focuses on thermal-infrared observations of small solar-system bodies. We look forward to his further activities in the future.