Third Grand Award Winner, International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF), 2025.
Second Grand Award Winner, European Union Contest for Young Scientists (EUCYS), 2024.
Top Award, Canada Wide Science Fair 2023, 2022.
Current Research
I study the physical properties of near-Earth, potentially hazardous, and binary asteroids - their rotation periods, shapes, spin states, and satellites - from open, ground-based photometry, and I develop algorithms to scale that analysis to large surveys such as the Vera C. Rubin Observatory (LSST). I also work on exoplanet transit-timing variations (TTV).
What I am working on now:
- Planetary defence - characterising the rotation, shape, and taxonomy of newly discovered near-Earth and potentially hazardous asteroids; I predicted asteroid Torifune's spin phase for JAXA's Hayabusa2 flyby from open survey data.
- Binary asteroids - rotation and mutual-event studies of binary systems, including the Hungaria binary (1727) Mette (paper in preparation for the Minor Planet Bulletin).
- Survey-scale algorithms for Rubin/LSST - automated methods to recover rotation periods, shapes, and unusual variability (tumbling, candidate binaries) from the sparse, multi-band photometry the Vera C. Rubin Observatory will deliver for millions of moving objects.
- Exoplanet transit-timing variations (TTV) - extending exoplanet ephemerides and predicting unseen planets from timing anomalies.
PLANETARY DEFENCE 路 JAXA Hayabusa2 Mission
Rotational Phase of Asteroid (98943) Torifune During Hayabusa2鈥檚 2026 Flyby
Arushi Nath 路 4 July 2026
On July 5, 2026, Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft races past the near-Earth asteroid Torifune at 5 km/s, skimming within about a kilometre of a 450-metre rock we've barely seen. Torifune spins once every five hours, so the spacecraft only glimpses whichever face happens to be turned toward it. Using open public sky-survey data, orbital geometry, and algorithms, I predicted - before the flyby - which side the spacecraft would see, and showed why it should catch the asteroid at the shorter side. Soon Hayabusa2's own images will tell us whether I got it right.
RESEARCH OBSERVATORY 路 Engineering for Millimagnitude Precision
Building My Remote Observatory at 15: Engineering for Millimagnitude Photometry Precision
Arushi Nath 路 28 May 2026
How I built my research-grade remote observatory in southern Spain dark-night skies at fifteen to study near-Earth asteroids and multiplanetary systems: the engineering decisions behind millimagnitude photometry, the fundraising and Masason Foundation grant, debugging a loose screw 7,000 km away, and what the International Astronomical Union (IAU) Minor Planet Center code R60 now lets me contribute to planetary defence.
INTERNATIONAL TALK 路 Asteroid Shape & Spin Presentation
My Second Year at Kyiv's Young Scientists' Conference on Astronomy and Space Physics 2026: Presenting the Shape and Spin of Asteroid 2025 FA22
Arushi Nath 路 28 April 2026
I presented my characterisation of newly discovered potentially hazardous asteroid 2025 FA22 at the Kyiv Young Scientists' Conference. From time-resolved CCD photometry I measured a rotation period of 13.075 卤 0.002 hours, a 0.62-magnitude double-peaked light curve indicating an elongated body, and multi-band BVRI colours placing it in the S-complex taxonomy.
My photometric study of potentially hazardous asteroid 2025 FA22, published in the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada, reports a 13.075 卤 0.002-hour rotation period, a 0.62-magnitude amplitude implying an elongated shape, and BVRI colours placing it in the S-complex taxonomy.
Since Artemis II launched in April 2026, I have been tracking the crewed spacecraft from Toronto using open science alone - combining public tracking data, robotic-telescope imaging, and seismic and infrasound array records to follow it from launch toward splashdown, and sharing the methods openly at MonitorMyMoon.com.
At the 57th Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (2026) I presented my characterisation of potentially hazardous asteroid 2025 FA22: a rotation period of 13.075 卤 0.002 hours, a 0.62-magnitude double-peaked light curve indicating an elongated body, and BVRI colours consistent with an S-complex classification, all from open ground-based photometry.
I measured the shape and spin of newly discovered potentially hazardous asteroid 2025 FA22 during its September 2025 close approach: a 13.075 卤 0.002-hour rotation period and a 0.62-magnitude, double-peaked light curve pointing to an elongated body, published in the Minor Planet Bulletin.
As a co-author of ExoClock Project IV (Kokori et al. 2026, ApJS), I contributed ground-based transit observations toward a homogeneous catalogue of updated ephemerides for 620 exoplanets - keeping their transit predictions accurate for follow-up by missions such as ESA's Ariel.
At the 2023 Planetary Defense Conference I asked Dr. Andy Rivkin whether the ejecta thrown off Dimorphos by NASA's DART impact would fall onto Didymos and change its rotation. Two new papers have now answered yes, and the DART observation team I contributed to received a NASA Group Achievement Award.
I imaged the interstellar comet 3I/ATLAS (C/2025 N1) from my remote observatory and measured its precise sky position, calibrating my astrometry against the Gaia DR3 catalogue as part of the International Asteroid Warning Network campaign.
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I built NEPTUNE, a method that finds exoplanets which never transit by measuring the transit-timing variations they induce on planets that do. Using N-body simulations to fit the timing anomalies, I recovered hidden-companion orbits and validated the approach against the known Kepler-46 system - work that won a Third Grand Award at the 2025 International Science and Engineering Fair.
PhAst is an open-science pipeline that accelerates asteroid characterisation by fusing sparse survey photometry (Gaia DR3, ZTF) with dense targeted and citizen-scientist data. I used it to characterise the DART target Didymos and about 2,100 asteroids, including targets of the NASA Lucy and UAE missions.
My open-source algorithms measure an asteroid's rotation period, shape, and size from ground- and space-based photometry, and assess whether a deflection attempt succeeded. Applied to NASA's DART target, the work won Second Prize at the 34th EU Contest for Young Scientists (Brussels, 2023) and became my sole-authored paper in Acta Astronautica.
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My project developed open-source algorithms to determine an asteroid's physical properties and measure the success of a deflection mission, applied to NASA's DART impact on Didymos. It won the 2023 Best Project Award at the Canada-Wide Science Fair, plus five category awards; I had also won the top award in 2022.
Over 2022-2023 I contributed 55+ hours of calibrated photometry of the Didymos-Dimorphos system and, with my own algorithms, measured the decrease in Dimorphos's mutual orbital period (11.91 h to 11.35 h) - the direct signature of NASA's successful DART deflection. I presented this at the 8th IAA Planetary Defense Conference at UNOOSA, Vienna.
CONFERENCE POSTER 路 DART Asteroid Research Poster
Lunar and Planetary Science Conference (LPSC) 2023 Poster Presentation
Arushi Nath 路 March 2023
(My Research Poster in 20 threaded tweets)
Strengthening Planetary Defence: Developing Algorithms to Determine the Physical Properties of Asteroids using Robotic Telescopes and Applying them to Measure the Impact of NASA's DART Asteroid Deflection Mission
The pace of discovery of near-earth asteroids outpaces current abilities to analyse them. Knowledge of an asteroid's physical properties is essential to deflect them. I developed open-source algorithms that combine images from robotic telescopes and open data to determine asteroids' size, rotation, and strength. I took observations of the Didymos binary asteroid, and my algorithm determined it to be 850m wide, with a 2.26-hour rotation period and rubble pile strength. I measured a 35-minute decrease in the mutual orbital period after impact by the 2022 NASA DART Mission. External sources validated the findings. Every citizen scientist is now a planetary defender.
CITIZEN-SCIENCE PROJECT 路 Asteroid Detection Algorithms
Strengthening Planetary Defence: Detecting Unknown Asteroids using Open Data, Math, and Python
Arushi Nath 路 March 2023
I took images from 4 telescopes located at different latitudes to get full sky coverage. I wrote Python algorithms to query European Space Agency's Gaia and NASA/JPL's Horizons ephemeris system to find all known stars and asteroids. Mean, standard deviation, and histograms created masks to remove known objects. The remaining objects were classified as possible asteroid candidates.
I detected 3 'preliminary' asteroids. Using the telescope's focal length and celestial location, my algorithm's plate-solving ability determined its Right Ascension and Declination. I reported this information by creating a Minor Planet Center report for my images. I have made my code and methodology open-source to crowdsource planetary defence.
SOLE-AUTHOR PEER-REVIEWED PUBLICATION 路 Foundations of Planetary Defence
Finding Unknown Asteroids to Strengthen Planetary Defence
Arushi Nath 路 February 2023
The success of the NASA Double Asteroid Redirection Test (DART) Mission in slamming a kinetic impactor on moonlet Dimorphos of asteroid Didymos on 2022 September 26 and changing its orbit has put the planetary defence on world news. The challenge of planetary defence intrigues me. Roughly 66 million years ago, an asteroid at least 10 kilometres wide may have led to the extinction of dinosaurs. If humans do not want to suffer the same fate, then we need to be well-informed and prepared to handle any threats of an asteroid colliding with Earth.
https://hotpoprobot.com/2022/11/24/webinar-asteroid-science-with-remote-telescope/