One woman's drive to rebuild her nation — through the stars

Anne Saker | Cincinnati Enquirer

FORT DAVIS, Texas — On a clear night over the Davis Mountains in early May, a woman far from her home in Kosovo climbed a ladder at the annual Texas Star Party to peer into a large telescope. She was hunting for an asteroid named after her.

Pranvera Hyseni, 23, is an amateur astronomer who says that igniting a love of the stars in her struggling nation will forge a path forward.

“People keep saying they are considering me, like, an important person, and I appreciate that,” she said. “But after all, I’m somebody who lives in a village, and I haven’t done a discovery. All I do is try to inspire kids with astronomy.”

Her native Kosovo is a landlocked Balkan nation still recovering from a war two decades ago, when it broke away from Serbia in the 1990s. The violent conflict prompted NATO forces, including U.S. troops, to intercede to protect the Albanian-speaking population.

One day after the war ended, a young Hyseni watched the reflection of a solar eclipse in a bucket of water. That view hooked her on space and what happens in the skies.

When Hyseni got a computer in high school, she built a Facebook following by writing about astronomy. An astronomer in Croatia sent her a small telescope. She got requests for demonstrations. So she put the telescope in a bag, boarded a bus and traveled to schools in Kosovo. The demand only grew.

In 2015, Hyseni and some friends founded the Astronomy Outreach of Kosovo, and the circle of global support grew. Last year, she gave the keynote address at the Texas Star Party, a week-long gathering of amateur astronomers in far west Texas. It was her first speech in English.

What was supposed to be a two-week trip stretched into four months, as astronomers arranged visits for her to American space-science landmarks, including Florida's Kennedy Space Center.

Back home, Hyseni and the Astronomy Outreach of Kosovo won a government commitment to build Kosovo’s first observatory. The Torrance, Calif., optics maker Celestron has pledged to donate a 14-inch telescope.

In November, the Minor Planet Center of the International Astronomical Union named a an asteroid after her — 45687 pranverahyseni.

“For the first time, an Albanian name is in space,” she said. “Everyone is so proud of that.”

This year, the Mars Generation, a nonprofit group, named Hyseni one of its "24 Under 24" young leaders in STEM — science, technology, engineering and mathematics. When she finishes her geography degree at the University of Pristina next year, she wants to attend graduate school to study astronomy or astrophysics in the United States.

Hyseni returned to the Texas Star Party this month to kick off another U.S. visit. On her first night here, she stood on the ladder to reach the telescope's eyepiece. The potato-shaped rock named 45687 pranverahyseni came into view.

She posted the jubilant news on Facebook: “I found it!”