18-year-old student discovers comet break-up

Once again, while looking for news-stuff this morning I came across something that opened my eyes to some other interesting things.

18-year-old student discovers comet break-up
Just a summary of the post, a student in her last year of high school was able to join with the Faulkes Telescope Project(I'll talk a bit more about this momentarily) during the summer and do some soul searching, or better yet star searching.

What this group does is ally itself with educational institutions, such as high schools, colleges, and universities and allows the students to be a part of astronomy. The students are allowed access to a lot of research and even able to spent time in the labs and use the equipment of this project. This student, 18 year-old Hannah Blyth of St. Johns College, Cardiff was part of this project. She worked with the project as a summer work-experience through her school and during just that summer witnessed some pretty amazing stuff. Not only did she spot the comet break-up but she was apart of discovering over 20 other unknown or previously undiscovered comets, 2 of which she discovered herself.

The post then goes into some of the other researchers discoveries and a bit about the project. It also makes a comment on how she see's herself becoming a biologist, instead of an astronomer in her future.


But back to the Faulkes Telescope Project. http://www.faulkes-telescope.com/ I read a little information on the website and thought it was an absolutely awesome idea put into practice. Students allowed to stand in beside established astronomers and help decipher images of space and deep-space sounds like the experience of a lifetime to me. I did a little preliminary reading but I plan on following this trail to see if we've got anything of this sort in America because if not, it's something that should be.