Three Wisconsin high school students found out Monday that the celestial object that they found during a recent science project has been verified as a sun orbiting asteroid. The trio will also get the rights to name the body, currently referred to as "2008 AZ28," according to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the international authority on known objects in the solar system.
The sophomores, Connor Leipold, Tim Pastika and Kyle Simpson made the discovery thanks to a grant from Calvin College in Michigan, which allowed the high school students to use the college's telescopes for their studies. The college maintains telescopes in New Mexico that can be remotely operated over the internet. The students' science teacher Vanden Heuvel, was an alumni of Calvin.
This is not the first time high school students have discovered an asteroid. In 1998 a group of high school students found a Kuiper Belt asteroid using a remotely operated NSF telescope in Chile under the National Science Foundation's Hands-On Universe Project.
A quick search of the Hands-On Universe Project, run by the Lawrence Hall of Science at University of California Berkeley, turned up another 38 asteroids discovered by students (mostly high school age) just in 2007!
According to NSF program officer Joseph Stewart,
Sounds like a great way to get to know your way around the solar system.
Racine Sophomores Discover Asteroid [WISN.com]
High School Students Discover Distant Asteroid Using NSF Telescope And Education Program [Science Daily (
1998)]
See Also:
- Asteroid Will Miss, Not Hit Mars This Month
- Student Finds Mega-Explosion in Space, Overlooked By Scientists
Image: Cool Flikr User Motionblur
