Cobb County School District : Walton Student Tracks Near-Earth Asteroid

Press release from Cobb County School District:

Aug. 23, 2021

Many Cobb students continued their learning over summer vacation. Walton High School senior Chinmay Joshi was one of those students. He spent his summer break operating a research-grade telescope remotely to take images of a near-earth asteroid. He then calculated its orbital path, including the chance it will impact Earth in the future.

Chinmay participated in the Summer Science Program (SSP), joining 35 other top science students from around the world online for academic challenge, collaboration, and personal growth. Since 1959, this unique and highly selective program has offered teenagers their first taste of hands-on, collaborative experimental research. Years and even decades later, alumni describe it as "the educational experience of a lifetime." Most go on to earn advanced degrees and leadership roles in their chosen careers.

The Walton student and his colleagues spent over 300 hours collecting and analyzing data in teams of three, overseen by experienced researchers. They also had the opportunity to engage with prominent guest speakers, including two Nobel Laureates, physicist Eric Cornell and oncologist James Allison.

SSP is operated by an independent non-profit, cooperating with host campuses New Mexico Tech, University of Colorado Boulder, Purdue University, and Indiana University, and academic affiliates Caltech, MIT, and Harvey Mudd College. For complete information, visit https://summerscience.org/.

This press release was produced by Cobb County School District. The views expressed here are the author’s own.