STERLING — In the not so
far away future, elementary age students in a science class will be able
to access Australia’s night sky from a telescope located on the campus of
Northeastern Junior College located here. As a matter of fact, students in 11
other locations across Colorado, the nation, and the world, may study the sky
via the web using photos taken from the same telescope. And in turn, local
students will have access to the galaxy’s nightly landscape from 11 other
locations.
One of the 12 telescopes designed
for satellite tracking and characterization was installed in Sterling last week
as part of the Falcon Telescope Network research project being put in place by
the United States Air Force Academy. The Falcon Telescope Network will
eventually provide Northeastern students and area K-12 students with the
opportunity to explore space, access raw data and do original research that will
contribute to the overall body of knowledge known about space.
Funded by a grant from the Air
Force Office of Scientific Research to the United States Air Force Academy’s
Center for Space Situational Awareness Research, the Falcon Telescope Network
will further research by the USAFA on characterizing satellites through
simultaneous observations taken from multiple telescope sites. The telescope
network will form the basis for the cadets’ education and research program in
space situational awareness, which is a critical national security issue. The
cost of the observatory is approximately $165,000. Northeastern was responsible
for the basic structure to house it, which was estimated at costing in the
neighborhood of $22,000.
Dr. Francis Chun, the director of
the USAFA’s Center for Space Situational Awareness Research, was at Northeastern
last week, along with a few other individuals to help oversee the construction
of the dome topped observatory which now sits on the college’s North Campus and
houses the telescope.
According to Chun, Northeastern
Junior College is one of 12 sites from across the world where 20-inch telescopes
will be placed. The telescopes are housed in clam-shell observatories with all
the technology to look through the telescope and monitor activity housed in a
nearby location. The sites were strategically chosen to provide the best eyes
into all of space at any given time.
“This is not the kind of
telescope that you look through the lens,” explained Chun. “With this telescope,
students will use computers and view objects on computer screens to identify and
track objects in space. Everything we capture with the telescope will come to us
as a digital image and thus can be viewed and analyzed just like any other
photographic digital image,” he said.
Chun explained that the 20-inch
telescope is powerful enough to look at existing planets, refine orbits, search
for planets and track objects in real time. “The sky is really the limit with
this telescope; we don’t know yet what all can be seen with this piece of
equipment.”
The purpose of the collaborative
project, and multiple global locations of sites, is to help the USAFA research
and track over 22,000 objects that are currently known to be in orbit around the
earth. To achieve a true picture of what is in orbit; simultaneous coverage is
required from many angles.
“We will combine the data
received from all 12 locations, looking at the different angles and different
spectrums to determine shape, size, what material the object is made of and the
orbit of the object,” said Chun.
“Without knowledge of what is in
orbit around the Earth, all satellite systems from the International Space
Station to GPS and Direct TV satellites will be more vulnerable to collisions
and natural space weather hazards,” explained Chun. “The Air Force routinely
tracks over 22,000 objects on a daily to weekly basis, but we believe there are
hundreds of thousands of space objects in orbit that are too small for our
current sensors to detect. Over time, space will only get more congested and as
more countries launch satellites, more collisions are likely to occur if there
is not a good system of monitoring. If those events happen, we all will
experience negative impacts on our lives that would include, but not limited to
banking, weather forecasting, navigating and communications,” he
explained.
Chun said that because all of the
objects that are being tracked are ‘public domain’ and are not ‘classified’ by
the nation’s military, this opened up the opportunity for USAFA to partner with
the educational institutions where the telescopes are being placed and offer
educational opportunities for the students at those institutions and their
surrounding communities. The telescope network provides some huge opportunities
for STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) instruction and engagement
with local and area school districts.
In addition to Northeastern’s
campus and the USAFA, three other Colorado colleges are part of the Falcon
Telescope Network, including Fort Lewis College, Durango; Colorado Mesa
University, Grand Junction and Otero Junior College, LaJunta.
The other partners in the project
from the United States will be Penn State in University Park, Penn., and Kauai
Community College in Hawaii. In addition to incorporating the Falcon Telescope
Network into the university’s astronomy program for education and research, Penn
State has already put in place an extensive K-12 outreach program throughout the
state of Pennsylvania to allow students of all ages the opportunity to explore
space in ‘real time’ and have access to raw data that is collected. For example,
a high school chemistry teacher from Bellefonte, PA plans to use the Falcon
Telescope project at her school. By developing grade-level curriculum that ties
into state standards, teachers there plan to incorporate the telescope project
into their classes and build multi-disciplinary ties into other subjects. This
will be done through field trips involving hands-on experiences and
science-related events surrounding the use and discoveries of the Falcon
Telescope Network.
Stanton Gartin, Vice President of
Academics at Northeastern Junior College said that as the network progresses
and then is finished, area school districts will be invited and encouraged to
utilize the observatory. Northeastern will also be incorporating the observatory
into some of its science and math related curriculum.
Dr. Chun explained that the USAFA
in Colorado Springs would be the hub of operations when the project is fully
operational in August 2014. The Cadet Space Operations Center will be the
central node and will establish a usage schedule for the telescopes for the
other users. He said that even when NJC is not using the telescope exclusively,
students will be able to monitor in real-time what users at the USAFA, Penn
State or other sites across the world are doing.
In addition to the five sites in
Colorado and Penn State, the other worldwide sites currently planned will
include one site in Chile, up to three sites in Australia, one site in South
Africa and one site at the International Space University in
France.
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