By Alfred Acenas
EBC Hawaii Bureau
HONOLULU (Eagle News) – Since July 20, High school students Esken Guarin and Jed Teagarden have been monitoring an asteroid 65 feet (20 meters) in diameter that appeared to pass close to Earth.
These young men have been tracking “Asteroid 2020 OO1,” using the Panoramic Survey Telescope and Rapid Response System 1 (Pan-STARRS1) managed by the University of Hawaii (UH) and located atop Mount Haleakalā on Maui Island. Pan-STARRS1 is considered as the world leader in finding near-earth objects (NEOs).
Guarin and Teagarden are among several young participants in the UH Institute for Astronomy (IfA) HI STAR program who use telescopes that are part of the Las Cumbres Observatory (LCO) global telescope network. Their observations were reported to the Minor Planet Center (MPC) and they received credit.
“It’s great to see our high school students being part of cutting edge science, using data from Hawaii’s observatories and around the world. These are our future STEM superstars,” said J.D. Armstrong, HI STAR director and IfA Maui outreach astronomer.
Guarin and Teagarden received high honors at the 2020 Maui County Science and Engineering Fair for their astronomy research. Guarin has observed exoplanets and authored several MPC circulars while Teagarden has studied asteroids and presented a project on sun-orbiting asteroid Gault.
During the COVID-19 pandemic, observatories around the world temporarily ceased operations, but locating asteroids through remotely operating telescopes continued. HI STAR students have been able to use robotic LCO telescopes for follow-up observations.
“Asteroid 2020 OO1” safely flew past Earth in late July, with its closest point approximately 1.7 times the distance of the Moon. Roughly the length of two school buses, its size is similar to the asteroid that exploded in the atmosphere over Russia in 2013 that sent a shock wave blowing out windows of over 7,000 buildings across six Russian cities.
The search for NEOs is funded by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office through its NEO Observations Program.
(Eagle News Service)