NMH Students Discover Four Asteroids

MOUNT HERMON, MA—What’s up? Asteroids! NMH students have discovered four large chunks of rock and ice moving through the Main Asteroid Belt between the orbits of Mars and Jupiter. The group of nine students in Hughes Pack’s fall semester astronomy class spotted the so-called Near-Earth Objects (NEOs) using images from a telescope in Illinois.

The group is part of an international project where high schools and colleges search for comets and asteroids that might possibly be on a collision course with Earth. Yes, they are attempting to help save the planet. The goal of this project is to recover suspected NEOs and provide observations that can be used by professional astronomers to refine the orbits of the asteroids, thus enabling them to know for certain whether Earth is in their sights. The class downloads many images of parts of the sky in which there might be a suspected NEO. At the computers in their astronomy classroom, they process the images in a way that allows them to search for any moving objects. Typically, a comet or asteroid will appear as a blurry grey dot moving in a constant, straight path.

While working to recover suspected NEOs last semester, class members discovered four new Main Belt asteroids: K07TN8K, K07T73P, K07T73O, and K07T15N. When they compared their findings with a database of known objects at the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Massachusetts, to see if their NEOs had been discovered by anyone else, they found that they hadn’t been.

Pack explained what else scientists can gain (besides a heads up before an asteroid plummets to Earth) by cataloging asteroids. “By counting the numbers and locations of asteroids, we can begin to build statistical models on what the Solar System might have looked like right after it formed, which might help us understand what we see today, and also what to look for as we find other stars with planets or debris orbiting them.”

Senior Josh Throckmorton was in the class and had this to say about the discoveries: “Being able to step into the shoes of a professional astronomer and actually contribute to the world of science is one of the coolest things I have ever done in high school. The fact that we, as high school kids, are helping NASA to track and monitor NEOs is pretty amazing. And the best part is that, as Hughes tells us, we can be heroes. And all we have to do is look up.”

Pack says NMH has again been invited to participate in the next NEO Confirmation Campaign taking place this spring. The search continues. Stay tuned.

Contact: Kate Snyder, 413-498-3357 or ksnyder@nmhschool.org.

Top of Page