Academically advanced and motivated high school students from around the world had the opportunity to participate in a project that observes asteroids and tracks orbits around the sun through the Summer Science Program, a nonprofit offering an immersion experience in experimental science to rising high school juniors and seniors. New Mexico State University hosted nearly three dozen students in this program for the first time over the summer.


 
If you’ve ever watched a movie about the dangers of asteroids getting too close to Earth, then you might consider these students heroes.
 


“The SSP astronomy program concentrates on tracking near-earth asteroids, which have a higher chance of becoming potentially hazardous asteroids, which are the ones we keep a particularly close eye on due to their increased probability of crashing into the earth,” said Adam Rengstorf, director of SSP’s astronomy program at NMSU. “It serves the larger community to keep track of where these things are. The Minor Planet Center collects data from many different places and then periodically recomputes the orbits of the asteroids to make sure they’re staying at a safe distance.”


 
The application process for the program started in November and received thousands of applications from all over the world. The acceptance rate is about 10%. The program at NMSU this summer hosted more than 30 students with seven international students and the balance from across the U.S.


 
“We break the students up into teams of three, so there's 12 different observing teams, and they're each looking at an asteroid,” Rengstorf said. This summer we used the 24-inch telescope at Tortugas Mountain Observatory, which is up on “A” Mountain.”


 
NMSU’s Department of Astronomy in the College of Arts and Sciences set up the teams with a remote observing center in the conference room of the Astronomy Building, from which they could control the telescope.


 
The students were taught everything they needed to know to write computer code, analyze the data and determine the correct orbital elements.


 
“A team would on average go on shift once every four nights,” Rengstorf said. “They’d collect data on their asteroid, and over four or five weeks, they had collected enough data to be able to compute the orbit.”


 
So, what happens to the analyses generated by these asteroid trackers?


 
After the students collect and analyze the data, they generate a final report plus send their data to the Minor Planet Center, run by the International Astronomical Union, and hosted at the Harvard Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Massachusetts. The MPC collects data on all solar-system objects from the astronomical community worldwide and keeps track of where they are.


 
University of North Carolina and the University of Colorado at Boulder also host SSP’s astronomy program. The organization supports three additional science programs, two in biochemistry at Indiana University and Purdue University and one in genomics at Indiana University.


 
NMSU astronomy graduate student Julio Morales was hired to be a teaching assistant for the Summer Science Program at the UNC campus this summer.


 
“My decision to apply for this program stemmed from my enduring passion for teaching astronomy,” Morales said. “SSP presented an ideal platform for honing my teaching skills and fulfilling my purpose of bringing joy through educating others about the cosmos.”


 
Morales was given opportunities to engage and get to know the students while guiding them through the project. He noted that the motivation of the students had a profound impact on him and the plans he has for his career in astronomy.
 


“The participants of SSP are remarkably motivated and driven individuals,” Morales said. “Ironically, their dedication revealed to me my own capabilities, surpassing what I had previously believed possible. This experience has instilled newfound confidence as I return to my graduate program. The opportunity to teach and guide at such an advanced level has also solidified my aspiration to become a professor of astronomy in the future.”


 
This summer program also created excitement within the astronomy department.


 
“I think this first year of SSP at NMSU has been important in many regards,” said Jason Jackiewicz, astronomy professor and department head. “Some of us gave presentations to the students, and they learned about our department and our research. It gave our department exposure to very bright kids who may think about NMSU astronomy for graduate school in five years. It also brought good use to one of our facilities, Tortugas Mountain Observatory, which doesn’t see such regular usage and also brought NMSU a large summer program whose students stayed on campus for five weeks.”


 
A fundamental aspect of the program is its loyalty and continuing support from former students.


 
“SSP is primarily funded through program fees and contributions from alumni,” Rengstorf said. “As a non-profit, they do get some grants, but the program relies on alumni donations. The board of directors consists of a lot of former participants that come back and volunteer and remain active with the program.”


 
Jackiewicz is encouraged by the outcome of NMSU’s first time hosting the Summer Science Program.


 
“It introduced us to a program that might want to expand their offerings into other areas at NMSU into the future,” Jackiewicz said. “And it also was good for us to meet and interact with the SSP directors, as we made new friends and colleagues.”
 
 
 

The full article can be seen at https://newsroom.nmsu.edu/news/in-orbit--high-schoolers-track-asteroids-in-nmsu-summer-science-program/s/e5f94615-7403-4df7-b863-98fc3262a680