Competing with students from nine countries on four continents, three Collin College students Adrian Boysselle, David Golynskiy and Deepak Joseph discovered a main belt asteroid, located in the region between Mars and Jupiter.

The students will receive NASA research awards for discovering new asteroid 2010 CK12 as part of the International Asteroid Search Campaign (IASC). In addition, the Minor Planet Center, an office of the International Astronomical Union located at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, will publish their names with their finding.

The students’ discovery was part of a Collin College Center for Advanced Studies in Mathematics and Natural Sciences (CASMNS) project with physics professors Dr. Mike Broyles and Dr. Greg Sherman. Their finding was substantiated with follow up images from Leonid Elenin from the Russian Academy of Sciences. The Collin College physics students analyzed satellite images from the new Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE). According to Dr. Broyles, the WISE satellite provides better resolution because it uses infrared wavelengths.

“There was a lot of international cooperation for this project. How many students in the world can say they have made a contribution to science like these students have?” Dr. Broyles asked.

For more information about Collin College ’s CASMNS programs visit the website at www.collin.edu/casmns .