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Monday, September 22, 2003

Lewis Center students track Galileo's demise

Students help scientists collect data to be sent to Jet Propulsion Laboratory
By CHRISTINA L. ESPARZA / Staff Writer - Daily Press

APPLE VALLEY — Inside the Lewis Center for Educational Research, two large screens are hanging on the wall, in front of a backdrop of a painted mural of outer space.

Up on the screen is a picture of the Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex's satellite-tracking antenna at Fort Irwin, with some numbers inside boxes, and an ever-changing line chart.

NASA officials on Sunday crashed the spacecraft Galileo into Jupiter, and those at the school were tracking any effects — namely temperature — resulting from the collision.

While NASA may have plenty of seasoned scientists to do the job, students at the Academy for Academic Excellence were called to duty to collect data that will be sent to the Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena and used in a worldwide database.

It seems like a tall task for a kid, but the ones scribbling down numbers, making their own model satellites out of Styrofoam balls and cupcake tins, and baking large cookies decorated to look like Jupiter took it all in stride.

While in the middle of all that, the students took turns operating the $12 million Goldstone telescope.

"I'm really excited because what we know is going to (NASA)," 11-year-old Erica Anderson said.

At first, tracking the temperature of Jupiter was tough for her, but Anderson got hold of it after a lot of practice and studying.

Seventh-grader Christopher McHenry said watching the satellite plunge into the planet was exciting.

"My two favorite parts were making a satellite and (studying) planetary rotation," McHenry said.

The Lewis Center's Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope Project, or GAVRT, is taking part in the Galileo project. Students across the country have been tracking Galileo and its plunge into Jupiter since 5:30 a.m. Sunday.

The project involves students in Northridge, Alabama, Iowa and Tennessee, who will be taking turns tracking Jupiter.

Some of the students involved were from Pat Phelan's special-needs classes.

"They know they're doing actual science and they're confident because the teachers are confident in them," Phelan said. "They love to come" to the laboratory.

Used with permission by Daily Press, Freedom Communication, 2003