This is a first: an asteroid in the solar system now bears the name of a Senegalese, Maram Kaire. The 42-year-old astronomer has been honored by the International Astronomical Union. Recognition of the President of the Senegalese Association for the Promotion of Astronomy (ASPA). Much invested in promoting discipline and popularizing his passion, he recently led two missions for NASA in his country.
His name is now etched for eternity in the solar system. Congratulatory messages poured in on his phone and on his Facebook page. But 42-year-old Maram Kaire is keeping her feet on the ground. “I still do not understand, I welcome the news with humility,” he said calmly behind his thin glasses. In the family living room, no maps or telescopes. Just a frame of his decoration to the rank of the Knight of the Lion Order, received in February 2020.
Until now, the asteroid bearing his name was simply numbered “35462 1998 DW 23”. “A dark object, invisible to the naked eye”. Discovered in 1998 by French astronomer Alain Maury, it is part of the main belt of celestial bodies orbiting the sun, between the planets Mars and Jupiter, and “carrying out a complete revolution of the sun in 4.36 Earth years”.
This “appointment”, Maram Kaire owes the initiative of friends astronomers, astrophysicists and planetologists, with whom he led two NASA missions – the US space agency – to Senegal, 2018 and then in September 2020. Mission “of occultation, linked to the exploitation of probes sent to the planets of the solar system “.
The discoverer’s agreement was followed by a long process within the International Astronomical Union. “I discovered on this occasion that it was necessary for politicians to wait 100 years after their death for their name to be associated with an object in the solar system. Some tell me that I can now enter politics! ”. He quotes a message from the discoverer Alain Maury after the validation: “You honor astronomy, it is normal for astronomy to honor you”.
Childhood passion, family reluctance
With Maram Kaire, born in Dakar in 1978, the passion for astronomy began at the age of 12 through reading. Patience in the Azure, by astrophysicist Hubert Reeves, is his bed book. He spends evenings observing the sky, “much clearer than today, it was less polluted by light”. At 14 o’clock he started making his first telescope. A vocation. “I understood from the beginning that this was what I wanted to do with my life, I remember praying.”
But we have to deal with family reluctance. “It was misunderstood,” he recalls, “people associated astronomy with meteorology, it was mockery, people who said, ‘you’re looking at the stars, you’ll go crazy.’ so after the bachelor’s it was necessary to make a compromise with my parents and especially my father “, for which the discipline was not adapted to the labor market. This compromise is data processing,” the backbone of astronomy “. Studies in systems and network technology in France follow.
Create cold
In 2006, you will return to the country, with one goal: that young people can find courses and infrastructures linked to astronomy on site. With other enthusiasts, he created ASPA, the Senegalese association for the promotion of astronomy. Today it has “a hundred members and a thousand sympathizers”. Conferences in schools, workshops, organization of the festival “Saint Louis under the stars” between 2008 and 2015, “space bus” campaign, to travel around the country … the goal is to popularize astronomy among the public and create professions.
The association also organizes observation sessions for moon screens for religious holidays. A “sensitive” task, Maram Kaire emphasizes, in a country where different societies regularly have different interpretations. “The question is about faith, we must act with great neutrality so as not to collide with positions and provide scientific information.”
“Space, a lever for development”
In the education system, Maram Kaire appeals for a significant introduction of space science. “Today, part of the chapter in the school’s geography program is dedicated to the solar system and it is being flown over very quickly,” he regrets.
Projects were launched by Mary Teuw Niane, former Minister of Higher Education, Research and Innovation (2012-2019), of whom Maram Kaire was technical advisor. President Macky Sall congratulates Maram Kaire and assures that “the government will be by his side in promoting astronomy”.
An asteroid in the solar system now bears the name of the Senegalese astronomer Maram KAIRE. I mean here all the pride of Senegal and congratulate it on this beautiful difference which, although immortalized, sublimates its passion and its commitment to astronomy. pic.twitter.com/LVaw871LM2
– Macky Sall (@Macky_Sall) June 30, 2021
Mary Teuw Niane, for her part, writes: “I dare to hope that this new difference will drive our country to complete the projects it carried, such as the Astronomical Observatory, the Planetarium, the Center for the Construction of Microsatellites and, in particular, the Senegalese Astronomical Bureau.”
“Space is a lever for development,” adds Maram Kaire. “For education and distance education, telemedicine, agriculture, satellite data are a big issue.” So when is an African astronaut on the moon? “The African Union Space Agency is considering a space program. But the priority for our countries, as Algeria, Nigeria, Rwanda and many others already do, is to master the technology connected to satellites, “the astronomer answers,” so that we can produce our own communications satellites, satellites for research. This would make it possible to have a first foot in space ”.
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