Piero Sicoli is an Italian

Italy

Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...

 astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...

 who works at the Sormano Astronomical Observatory as an Observatory Coordinator, responsible for close encounter

Close encounter

In ufology, a close encounter is an event in which a person witnesses an unidentified flying object. This terminology and the system of classification behind it was started by astronomer and UFO researcher J. Allen Hynek, and was first suggested in his 1972 book The UFO Experience: A Scientific...

 computation of Near-Earth asteroids (NEAs), orbit computations, and observations. The Observatory's focus is the examination and tracking of Solar System minor bodies, and Piero Sicoli is a prolific discoverer of asteroid

Asteroid

Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...

s. Some of his findings can be seen here http://www.brera.mi.astro.it/sormano/pcel.html. The minor planet (7866) is named after him.