According to a scientist at the Indian Institute of Astrophysics (IIA) here, the asteroid (or Minor planet), was discovered on March 17, by one of IIA's students S G Bhargavi and two observation assistants at the Observatory -- C Velu and M Gopal.

``Bhargavi had gone to Kavalur for her project thesis on Gamma Ray bursts. After taking a few CCD -- Charge Coupled Device -- camera images of a field of Gamma-ray burst sources, she noticed a faint object moving on the CCDs,'' he said.

She had taken six CCDs. Repeated observations of the same object had led Bhargavi, Velu and Gopal to inform the Minor Planet Centre in America which had temporarily designated the asteroid as `X'.

``Its full designation is `X C 1999 220' where C 1999 stands for the year and 220 stands for the Observatory,'' the scientist said.

He explained that scientists all over the world would observe the planet for a year to find out whetherit had proper orbit. ``Only then will it be given a name,'' he added.

This is the second asteroid to be discovered from the Vainu Bappu Observatory at Kavalur. The first was the `Srinivasa Ramanujan' discovered by IIA's scientists in 1989.