The majority of astronomical finds are attributed to the experts in fields that have been invested in their studies for many years. Occasionally a post-graduate student will have been given access to some information which will allow her or him to have discovered something, but in the long run, it doesn't happen all that often.
Well it turns out that little people can do big things too, or at least, juniors at college at the University of Washington.
Five students set out in 2005 to find supernovas. They were quickly interrupted by a mass of asteroids clouding their view. It is these asteroids that, if enough information is gathered, will be named after the five undergraduates that found them; Amy Rose, Amber Almy, Amanjot Singh, Kenza Sigrid Arraki and Kathryn Smith.
The five are part of the UW Pre-Major in Astronomy Program, which allows for freshman and sophomores to engage in research normally held back for the more career defined.
"It's real science that these students are doing in their first and second years of college, and the data sets they are using are pretty large, which gives them skills such as data-mining that they can use for a long time," said Andrew Becker, a UW research assistant professor in astronomy and research adviser to the UW Pre-Major in Astronomy Program.
The information that they were mining through was data from the second phase of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey, made by the 2.5-meter Sloan telescope at Apache Point, N.M. Each asteroid has been given a preliminary identification, after the information was submitted to the Minor Planet Center at Harvard University for verification.
"It's an amazing feeling -- I feel like I'm jumping into research," said Rose, a junior who went to high school in Lake Stevens and now lives in Edmonds. "It's not just taking tests and going to class."
The team discovered a cache of over 1,300 asteroids that have never been observed before. Eric Agol, a UW assistant professor of astronomy and faculty adviser to the pre-major program believes that the find is important, because of the amount of asteroids found at once. The 1,300 will add to the collection of 335,000 known bodies in the solar system.
This new program allows students the chance to get a hands on knowledge of a major that they may choose in the future. "That's the whole goal, to start in the first quarter and get the students excited about research and about science," Agol said. "So far we have two or three who are going to major in astronomy, but there are others who are going into other sciences, which is a broader goal."
Joshua Hill, a Geek’s-Geek from Melbourne, Australia, Josh is an aspiring author with dreams of publishing his epic fantasy, currently in the works, sometime in the next 5 years. A techie, nerd, sci-fi nut and bookworm.
