This eight-year-old astronomy enthusiast may be the youngest ever person to have discovered an asteroid.
Despite her tender age, Star Wars fan Nicole Oliveira of north-eastern Brazil studies and catalogues asteroids as part of a project named Asteroid Hunters.
The project is managed by the NASA-affiliated citizen science programme International Astronomical Search Collaboration (IASC) in association with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation of Brazil.
Nicole, or Nicolinha as she is affectionately called, told the AFP news agency that she had already discovered 18 asteroids.
If her discoveries are officially certified in a process that may take a number of years, she will overtake 18-year-old Luigi Sannino of Italy to be recognised as the youngest ever person to find an asteroid.
Nicolinha hails from the city of Maceio, but she has been living with her family in Fortaleza since the start of this year after a private school in the city, 452 miles from her hometown as the crow flies, offered her a scholarship.
Her astronomy teacher, Heliomarzio Rodrigues Moreira, said: “She really has an eye. She immediately spots points in the images that look like asteroids and often advises her classmates when they are not sure they have really found any.
“The most important thing is that she shares her knowledge with other children. She contributes to the dissemination of science.”
Nicolinha has long been fascinated by astronomy. When she turned seven years old, she was gifted a telescope for her birthday that she had been asking for since she was just three.
Her mum and dad, who work in the crafts industry and as a computer scientist respectively, could only afford it after friends chipped in.
She later joined a course in astronomy after they bent the admission rules because she was too young at the time.
Nicolinha is active on social media. Her Instagram page boasts 22,000 followers and her YouTube channel has 3,500 subscribers.
On the latter, she has interviewed her compatriot, renowned female astronomer Duilia de Mello, who discovered the supernova 1997D, the largest spiral galaxy in the universe.
Nicolinha also had the privilege to meet Marcos Pontes, the current Science, Technology and Innovation Minister and the first South American to go into space in 2006, in a trip to the capital Brasilia last year.
Of her future plans, Nicolinha told AFP: “I want to build rockets. I would love to go to the Kennedy Space Center at NASA in Florida to see their rockets.”
