From mid-March to late-May 2010, a group of 5 schools from the US, working in partnership with 5 UK schools, will be using the 2-m Faulkes telescopes from the Las Cumbres Observatory Global Telescope Network (LCOGT) to take follow-up images of NEOs, recently discovered by the NASA WISE spacecraft. The students will prepare the reports containing the confirmation information that are submitted to the Minor Planet Center (Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, Harvard) . The follow-up images will provide important confirmation information to the MPC and the NASA Near-Earth Object Program (Jet Propulsion Laboratory).

Details of this exciting programme can be found here.

The aim of this activity is to use DS9 to find asteroids by blinking more than one image.

On this page you will find a variety of worksheets based around the topic of asteroids, comets, NEOs and impacts. These worksheets can be downloaded and printed out for use in the classroom or at home. There is no clear split in the documents for levels (e.g. KS3/KS4) so we suggest that teachers look through the worksheets and choose the appropriate questions for the level of students they are teaching.

The following worksheets contain physics-based questions for the module, 'Earth and Beyond'. They are aimed at Key Stage 3 Students, but have also been split into 'Introductory' and 'Advanced' to enable all abilities of KS3 students to use them. In some cases there may not be a great difference between the types questions at each level but, for example, the terminology used will differ depending on if it is the 'Introductory' or 'Advanced' worksheet. It is obviously the teacher's decision as to which worksheets would be more suitable for their students. We have also written an introduction document which contains teaching strategies for this module, together with a set of activity instructions which details how to use the FTs in relation to this module.

The following worksheets contain physics-based questions for the module, 'Light and Optics'. They are aimed at Key Stage 3 Students, but have also been split into 'Introductory' and 'Advanced' to enable all abilities of KS3 students to use them. In some cases there may not be a great difference between the types questions at each level but, for example, the terminology used will differ depending on if it is the 'Introductory' or 'Advanced' worksheet. It is obviously the teacher's decision as to which worksheets would be more suitable for their students. We have also written an introduction document which contains teaching strategies for this module, together with a set of activity instructions which details how to use the FTs in relation to this module.

You will start this project by finding and observing asteroids which are bright and relatively slow moving, and therefore very easy to observe. You will then use computer software to see the asteroid move against the starry background.

The next stage of the project is to accurately measure the position of the asteroid and give its RA and Dec to at least ±0.2' accuracy. You will then submit those positions to our Asteroid Portal.

Finally, you will learn how to find and observe NEOCP (Near Earth Object Confirmation Page) objects which are faint and very fast-moving asteroids with uncertain orbits. You will observe these objects, measure their positions and report them to the MPC (Minor Planet Center). Swift measurements of these objects can result in student / teacher names being published in the MPECs (Minor Planet Electronic Circulars).

This course will help you understand the simple calculations that can be done using your own observations of asteroids.

For this themed observing day, an asteroid is going to be observed over a period of 4 hours. During this time each user will observe for 30 minutes. The combined data from all users will be analysed and the change in the brightness of the asteroid will be plotted to form a light curve. This will be used to estimate how fast the asteroid is rotating.