Undergraduates Discover Hundreds of Asteroids
A group of five undergraduate astronomy students at the University of Washington have discovered more than 1,300 asteroids that were previously unknown. That equates to around one out of every 250 known objects in the Solar System.
The five students initially set out in 2005 to use the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) to search for supernovae, but got sidelined by the amount of asteroids that they were finding.
'We started searching for supernovae using data from the second phase of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey and all these asteroids were in the way', said Andrew Becker, a UW research assistant professor in astronomy. 'We decided that rather than get frustrated by the asteroids we should do some science and note details about our observations. I kept asking the students what they had found and they kept saying, "More asteroids. No supernovae, but lots of asteroids."'
The undergraduates who found the asteroids - Amy Rose, Amber Almy, Amanjot Singh, Kenza Sigrid Arraki and Kathryn Smith - made the discoveries in 2005 and 2006. They used computers to search through images made by the 2.5-metre Sloan telescope at Apache Point, New Mexico.
Their findings were submitted to the Minor Planet Center at Harvard University for verification. Each asteroid has been given a preliminary designation, but if enough data is gathered during a three-year period each can be named by its initial discoverer.
The Sloan Digital Sky Survey-II is creating a detailed, three-dimensional map of about 1 million galaxies and quasars in one-quarter of the night sky using images captured by a highly specialised telescope.
