Proposal: Many celestial bodies orbit relatively near to Earth on a daily basis. Some actually enter our atmosophere but are too small to be of any significance or to create any large impact. However, there are some asteroids which, due to their size and current path, do pose some threat to people on Earth.

We plan to create a program which will analyze the asteroids which are near to Earth and determine the number of those that pose a threat. We will examine their trajectories and masses to determine which, if any, are likely to hit Earth – and to which extent the collision may affect human life.

We will also research asteroid deflection strategies. For these strategies to be successful, years of preparation are needed. Not only mass and trajectory, but also the material composition has to be estimated. Therefore, it is crucial to identify any potential threat as quickly as possible.

We will use Visual Basic to provide both a graphical and numerical representation of our results.
Similar programs exist and we will compare our results to known and predicted values.

Team Members:

Bianca Bologa
Karalyn Baca

Sponsoring Teacher: Jim Mims

Mail the entire Team