In the Sky, Broad Run Students Find 'Sparta'

Spartans Spend Part of Semester Confirming Asteroids, Lending a Hand to Science

By Katie DePaola

Monday, January 21, 2008

For some AP physics students at Broad Run High School, the fall 2007 semester was literally out of this world.

Eight seniors analyzed astronomical images and confirmed the existence of multiple asteroids through the International Asteroid Search Campaign, an educational outreach program provided at no cost to participating high schools and colleges.

The students were credited with the discovery of asteroid 2007 TW04, which they have begun calling "Sparta" in honor of the Broad Run Spartans.

Broad Run's AP physics teacher, Janet Bosch, heard of the asteroid campaign and contacted the program's founder, Patrick Miller, to get her students involved.

"I knew about the program, and this is a special class for me," Bosch said. "A lot of them have been accidentally with me for about three years, so this is sort of my parting gift to them for graduation."

Miller, a professor at Hardin-Simmons University in Abilene, Texas, began the campaign in October 2006 in collaboration with other programs and researchers.

The partnership gives students the chance to work with astronomers and make discoveries in the classroom to benefit science. Miller said the International Asteroid Search Campaign provides a tool for teachers, gives students experience and gets astronomers new information.

In the end, it's a win-win situation for everyone.

"Students are actually doing research. They are actually making contributions to the field of planetary science and getting credit for it. And in some cases, it gets published," Miller said. "It's more than just going into a physics lab or hauling a telescope outside. It's actual research."

Broad Run participated in IASC's fourth asteroid search and will be joining in the fifth annual event that begins Feb. 4. The most recent search involved 15 colleges and high schools from seven countries, including Italy, Morocco, Poland and the United States. Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology in Alexandria also participated in the campaign.

"I just think this is the most beautiful partnership I've ever seen. I like the program because it's possible to achieve something," Bosch said. "There are a lot of rocks out there, and chances are, they're probably going to find one."

Making a Discovery

The process of discovering asteroids involves a lot of time – and a lot of data.

From his home in Illinois, astronomer Bob Holmes takes about 500 images of the night sky and sends them to Miller. Then, from Texas, Miller downloads the asteroid images and consolidates them into image sets for Astrometrica, the program used by the students. Miller posts the image sets to Blackboard, an online educational Web site, which allows students to access and download the images from their computers at school.

Using Astrometrica, the students sift through the images. The software picks up on movement and records the positions of unknown objects. When a suspected asteroid is found, students must decide whether the object is a candidate for an asteroid.

If so, they create a report through Astrometrica to send back to Miller for further review.

In the next round, Holmes photographs the object once again. The images are put on Blackboard and sent to a different group of students. If the second set of students confirms the discovery, a report is made.

Final approval comes from the Minor Planet Center of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Once the MPC confirms the asteroid, the students receive official credit for the discovery.

The Spartans also went through this process – and now they have "Sparta" to show for it.

Hands-On Learning

Bosch said although the idea of discovery is fascinating, more than anything, she hopes the project will inspire students to become more involved with scientific research.

"We need more scientists who will volunteer and create situations, because we really want high school students to participate in research," she said.

Students said the experience was both challenging and exciting.

"When Ms. Bosch told us about the project last year, I had no idea what she was talking about," Broad Run senior Steve Hansen said.

And in the beginning, the process proved both confusing and difficult.

Sady Ashkar, who plans to major in engineering, said it took the students a couple of weeks to get the program running smoothly.

"A lot of files were not loading and there were a lot of technical difficulties," he said.

For Robby Buckman, who will be attending Bellarmine University on a lacrosse scholarship next fall, learning the software was stressful. However, the taste of success after finding the asteroid encouraged students to keep their eyes to the sky.

"Once we actually found it -- at least for me -- I wanted to keep doing it," Buckman said.

The discovery has made an impact on all of the students. Ilia Drougov, who wants to major in biochemistry or computer science, wrote about the discovery in his college essay.

The discovery was "a little surprising" for Emil Yanakiev, who hopes to attend Virginia Tech next year.

"We were told it wasn't going to be that easy to find an asteroid, and that it wasn't going to be all that certain if we were going to get anything. But then we got all this attention all of the sudden," Yanakiev said. "It was surreal at first."

Future Findings

With midterms right around the corner, the fall semester is about to come to an end. But for Broad Run students, the search for asteroids has just begun.

"The hunt goes on," Bosch said.

The next campaign will last from February to the middle of March. This time, Bosch plans to open the campaign to students beyond her AP Physics C class.

Meanwhile, Miller and his team are making plans to develop the program even further.

"We want the program to expand in the future to include searches for Kuiper Belt objects, comets, supernovae and active galactic nuclei," Miller said.

Eventually, the name will be changed from the International Asteroid Search Campaign to the International Astronomical Search Campaign to widen its realm of research.

As an astronomer herself, Bosch said one of her wishes is to get more information on the asteroid her class discovered. However, she said, "most rocks are well-behaved and stay in orbit."

In reality, the only way astronomers would give "Sparta" a closer look is if it moved off its path or posed some kind of threat.

"So this might be the end of the story for the 'Sparta' asteroid," she said. "It's the well-behaved ones that don't get any attention."

For more information on how to get involved in the project, contact Patrick Miller at pmiller@hsutx.edu.

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