Asteroids: School Students Make 11 New Discoveries [Video]

A team of school students and teachers has discovered 11 small astronomical objects in our solar system, including one provisionally recognized by a NASA-backed program as a main belt asteroid (MBA).

The team, from Dyal Singh Public School in Karnal, northern India, was participating in an initiative known as the International Astronomical Search Collaboration when it made the discoveries, the Hindustan Times reported.

The IASC is a program launched in 2006 that provides high-quality astronomical data to citizen scientists around the world at no cost. These citizen scientists, which include teams from schools (elementary through college) and community groups around the world, are then able to make original discoveries of astronomical objects.

The data the program uses is collected by telescopes located in Hawaii and elsewhere that continuously scan the sky in search of minor astronomical objects.

Of the 11 solar system objects uncovered by the team of students and teachers at Dyal …