The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has named the asteroid 2001 QH220 after Jordi Portell, researcher at the Technological Unit of the Institute of Cosmos Sciences of the University of Barcelona (ICCUB) and the Institute of Space Sciences of Catalonia (IEEC) and member of the Quantum Physics and Astrophysics department of the UB.
The nomination of the asteroid after Dr. Portell is a recognition of his outstanding work on Asteroid Data Processing in the Gaia mission of the European Space Agency (ESA), where he coordinates several aspects of Gaia daily operations, including the detection of asteroids on the focal plane.
The asteroid in particular, 2001 QH220, was discovered in August, 2001 in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter by the Lowell Observatory Near-Earth-Object Search (LONEOS).
The organism responsible for naming comets, asteroids and minor planets is the Working Group Small Bodies Nomenclature (WGSBN) of the IAU, who publishes the new names on periodic bulletins. The Portell asteroid was included in the Bulletin #9 which was published on June 21st.
“This news came as a great surprise”, says Dr. Portell. “I feel really honoured and grateful to have a Solar System body named after me! I specially appreciate that such a recognition is related to my work on the daily data processing system of Gaia, where we faced quite a few challenges - but also had quite some fun, especially with the Solar System Objects team in Nice. This system, which processes millions of Gaia measurements every day, including known and yet unknown asteroids, is only possible thanks to the hard work of our team. Gaia is really an amazing project.”
About the researcher
Jordi Portell is an electronics engineer and Doctor in Applied Physics and Science Simulation from the UPC. He works on the Gaia mission by coordinating data processing activities. He is a specialist in compression algorithms and was in charge of aspects of Gaia daily operations, including the detection of asteroids on the focal plane.
He is the current deputy director of the Technology Unit for the software and massive data division, the operations and interface engineer of the Gaia mission Project Office, and is giving support to several projects, such as PLATO or NewSpace missions. He has published more than 50 articles in scientific journals, is co-inventor of a patent and has directed three doctoral theses. Portell is also the technology director of the spin-off company of the University of Barcelona and the Universitat Politècnica, DAPCOM Data Services, which markets its own data compression technology.
