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High School Sophomores Discover Asteroid
Several readers sent us the story of three high school sophomores in Racine, Wisconsin who were just notified that a celestial body they had discovered during a science project has been verified as an asteroid. The students at Racine's Prairie School will be given the opportunity to name the asteroid in about four years. They used a telescope in New Mexico, belonging to a college in Michigan, that they controlled over the Net.
Let's hope its not called Wolf-Biederman
Can anyone please explain to me please why they can name "their" asteroid in about 4 years? I mean, it's cool to wait a little to make sure everything is alright and this wasn't just speck dust on the lens...but 4 years seems a long time to peer-verify something like this and give them permission to name it.
Also: I suppose those guys must ace all those two-picture "spot the 10 differences" tests after this...
Say I'm looking through a telescope at a bunch of bright orbs in the sky. How do I report one dot to the authorities to see if it's known yet or not?
MHNATY.
will be given the opportunity to name the asteroid in about four years.
Unfortunately, this will be 5 months after it collides with the earth.
No unauthorized use. Trespassers will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
Because they're in high school. If you let them to name the comet now, you'll only get suggestions such as "The Big ASSteroid" or "Your Junk" (I can just hear it now - "Your Junk is soo small, you need a telescope to find it"). I'm sure they're just giving them enough time to mature.
Just -1, Troll talking to another.
Bob Holmes' website:
http://ari.home.mchsi.com/index.htm/
List of asteroids discovered this school year:
http://ari.home.mchsi.com/mp_discoveries_table_2007.htm/
And some info on the telescope he uses to capture images:
http://bi-staff.beckman.uiuc.edu/~melockwo/telescopes/holmes32/holmes32.html/
Same deal as this article. He uploads pics for students at participating schools to work with.
Nah- they'll name it Dottie 'cause she's a vicious lifesucking bitch from which there is no escape
Yesterday we get "What Was Your First Gaming Experience" and today it's "High School Sophomores Discover Asteroids". So what? Who hasn't played Asteroids?
No folly is more costly than the folly of intolerant idealism. - Winston Churchill
Kyle
Just in case you're nicely in line with its trajectory :-).
Insert
I liked the shield feature in Asteroids Deluxe better than the hyperspace feature in the original, though.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
this leaves with the impression this guys just got lucky. It's like they identified each faint dot as an asteroid, and one just turned out to be exactly that. I imagine they just pointed at each dot
Students:Is this an asteroid?someone knowledgeable:No
Students:Is this an asteroid?
someone knowledgeable:No
Students:Is this an asteroid?
someone knowledgeable:No..wait Yes
Students: Ha we are smart!
However I do give the students credit for initiative, it's refreshing to see that some kids still have interest in science (other then computing)
These kids are in high school. They're discovering new things. They spend a lot of time examining these new things they've discovered. They're to watch to see just how they move, and if the grow larger. Some time later, it is possible they'll have something named after them -- but they can't know for sure right away.
Yep. Sounds like high school to me.
The problem with quotes on the internet, is that nobody bothers to check their veracity. -- Abraham Lincoln
Around 2000 I witnessed a naked-eye celestial event, an asteroid bouncing off the moon. It wasn't until a friend showed me a movie downloaded off of a P2P filesharing system of the same event that I witnessed that I believed it was real. Does anyone know what this asteroid was finally named? Cause I call it 'Skippy'.
A HAWKING HOLE!
Skinner:"Noooooooooooooooooo."
Chuck Norris. 'nuff said.
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." - Napoleon Bonaparte
Worse yet, the kid may want to name it some text-message garble like "ZOMGDIDUCMEP" or somesuch. Or, worse yet, the kid's a gamer and names it "noob" or "qq pvp server," or EVEN worse...
ROTFLCOPTER.
Wisconsin, eh? Then it went something like this:
Tommy: "Ohhhhh...Looky 'dere, Billy! There's somethun' up in sky o'ver 'dere!"
Billy: "Ohhhh...that's one of them 'dere asteroids, don't ya know!"
Sophomores use their telescopes for watching asteriods.
I use my telescope for watching sophomores.....
(/perv)
Donte Alistair Anderson Roberts - hi son!
Karma: Chameleon
Come on, at least give them a few years' detention. Don't do the crime if you can't do the time, is what I always say! Young miscreants such as these cannot be permitted to go unpunished!
If science fiction has taught me anything, there are fields of these asteroid things all over the place. They make for great cinematography and space battles. Let me know when they find something other than a big rock or ball of gas.
I wonder which one is Cosmos?
Let's hope this one doesn't head for the Earth.
Beetle B.
Bob Holmes' website:
http://ari.home.mchsi.com/index.htm
List of asteroids discovered this school year:
http://ari.home.mchsi.com/mp_discoveries_table_2007.htm
And some info on the telescope he uses to capture images:
http://bi-staff.beckman.uiuc.edu/~melockwo/telescopes/holmes32/holmes32.html
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
Try Calvin College...yeesh. Just because Taco went to Hope (bitter rivals)...grumble grumble...
Pictures of the telescope.
Could I suggest "Doombringer" for this asteroid?
I have nothing to say.
mybffjill
--- If the bible proves the existence of God, then Superman comics prove the existence of Superman.
School officials expel students for illegal asteroid use after reading their blog.
The students named the asteroid Caca cause it was found near Uranus. Ha ha. Get it? Asteroid - ass turd. Uranus - your anus. Ha ha. Me so funny.
It'll burn up in atmosphere and whatever's left will be no bigger than a Chihuahua's head.
... that happens when some kid gets a telescope for Christmas. He doesn't tighten down the azimuth axis while he's looking in the bedroom window of the girl next door and the next thing you know, the damned thing ends up pointing toward the sky.
Have gnu, will travel.
Wow, flip through the comments and the overwhelming majority poke fun at the situation. Sounds to me like a bunch of angry nerds who are a little jealous they never did anything this cool in HS. Give the kids a break. They are kids, ya know, and I think discovering an asteroid is a pretty cool accomplishment for a kid, regardless of what kind of help they recieved.
FOXTROT UNIFORM CHARLIE KILO
I may be able to clear a few things up, I am a friend of all three of the sophmores, in their class at their school. They are not naming it yet because the people in charge have to make sure its not just a piece from another asteroid that broke off. They monitor it for a year, and then are able to name it. They can not name it what ever they want the people in charge of the minor planet center thing regulate it. They can only suggest. All three students are not planning on naming it something stupid. Any other questions just reply.
Astronomy is one of the areas where amateurs can make a significant contribution. I listened to a radio program about this the other day. Ah, here we are:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/science/citizenscience.shtml (N.B. May not work in the USA?)
"Some of these enthusiasts get a thrill out of seeing sky sights with their own eyes, while others patiently scan the heavens to discover things that no human has seen before.
David Tate monitors the skies from a small fibreglass dome which he built himself in his back garden near High Wycombe.
He has set up a telescope with a webcam attached which he uses to record movie sequences of the planets. After processing, some of his images rival those produced by the professionals.
Mike Oates in Manchester doesn't need to watch the skies in his search for comets: he uses a home computer rather than a telescope.
By monitoring images taken by the NASA/ESA SOHO satellite, published daily on the Internet, he can record comets which graze the sun and sometimes crash into it. So far Mike has discovered 145 comets without even looking down a telescope.
But the top prize for amateur dedication must go to Tom Boles in Suffolk.
Every night that it is not cloudy he goes to his little observatory and uses three telescopes simultaneously to scan about 12,000 distant galaxies every week.
On the cloudy nights he studies each galaxy to search for the faint flashes of distant exploding stars or supernovae. Over the decade he has been doing this, he has clocked up a world record of 202 discoveries!"
Environmentalism is the new Victorianism. Everyone ties on a green corset and pretends we're virtuous.