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HIGH-SCHOOL
STUDENT WINS AWARDS FOR WORK WITH NASA SPACECRAFT A
high-school student teamed up with a professional astronomer to make observations
of the remains of a star explosion with NASA's Rossi X-ray timing Explorer (RXTE)
spacecraft. Mr. Harish Khandrika, a 11th grade student at La Jolla High School,
La Jolla, Calif., joined Dr. Richard Rothschild of the University of California
to make the observations, winning a series of awards at the Greater San Diego
Science and Engineering Fair and the Intel International Science and Engineering
Fair, Louisville, Ky. Khandrika,
whose room is plastered with posters of stars and planets, channeled his curiosity
about space into an award-winning science fair project by reaching out to astronomers
at the local university. "I am very passionate about studying the Universe,"
said Khandrika. "Last summer, I knocked on the doors of the scientists at
the Center for Astrophysics and Space Sciences at the University of California,
San Diego, to ask if anyone would be kind enough to let me work in his or her
laboratory. I expressed my interest in supernovae and black holes to Dr. Gene
Harding Smith, who directed me to Dr. Rothschild. It was Dr. Rothschild who suggested
that I look at data from RXTE." Star
explosions, called supernova, can outshine a billion suns, and are intimately
connected to our origin since they create and/or distribute life-sustaining elements
into space. A supernova hurls trillions of tons of elements into space in an enormous
cloud, called a supernova remnant. These elements are incorporated into later
generations of stars and planets, and, ultimately, life. Khandrika
used RXTE to look for gamma rays emitted by radioactive Titanium (Ti-44) in supernova
remnant Cassiopeia A. Ti-44 changes into other elements relatively quickly by
radioactive decay, so its presence in a supernova remnant indicates that the star
must have exploded recently. (Half of a given amount of Ti-44 will change into
Scandium in about 59 years.) Khandrika established that the Ti-44 in Cassiopeia
A could not be above a certain amount, or its gamma-ray emission would have been
seen by RXTE. The
upper limit is consistent with an actual detection made by other researchers during
the same period using Beppo SAX, an Italian spacecraft. The results indicate that
the supernova produced an amount of Ti-44 about equal to 40 times the mass of
the Earth, and that during the supernova, the star's core should have collapsed
to form a neutron star, an incredibly dense sphere with the mass of about half
a million earths compressed to the diameter of a large city.
Khandrika
enjoyed his research experience tremendously, and hopes to become an astronomer.
"I just loved it. I enjoyed my work at CASS. It was a pleasure working with
Dr. Rothschild. He provided a lot of motivation and inspiration for me. I am very
happy that the work was recognized too. I hope to pursue graduate studies in space
sciences and be a space scientist, trying to understand my place in this awesome
vast expanse. Maybe one day I will work for NASA !!!" "I
enjoyed working with Harish, who is a very motivated and inquisitive student,"
said Rothschild. "He worked very independently, gathering information on
stellar formation, supernova events, and remnants from the Web and from books
loaned to him. I was very impressed with his level of understanding and his curiosity.
When he began the data analysis, he quickly picked up relevant aspects of the
UNIX operating system and the NASA/GSFC HEASARC FTOOLs used in the analysis. We
have begun a second project for this summer -- this time emission from a massive
black hole at the center of the active galaxy NGC 529A." Khandrika's
project received a lot of attention at the San Diego science fair, where it earned
him the Sweepstakes Award, First Place in Earth and Space Sciences, the San Diego
Astronomy Association Award, the Mt. Laguna Observatory Association award, the
General Atomics Fusion award, and the Hughes Network Systems award. At
the San Diego science fair, two senior division projects are selected as best
of fair projects (selected from the best of in each category) to receive the sweepstakes
awards and to represent the county at the Intel International Science and Engineering
Fair. The award includes a $2000 scholarship from the Reuben H. Fleet Science
Center, San Diego. Khandrika's
success at the San Diego science fair led him to the Intel science fair, where
he won another award, the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and the Astronomical
Society of the Pacific (ASP) Priscilla and Bart Bok Second Award. The
Priscilla and Bart Bok Award is presented annually by AAS and ASP for two outstanding
astronomical projects at the International Science and Engineering fair. The second
award consists of a $3,000 scholarship, and the student's school science department
will receive $1,000. Support for this award has been provided by a grant from
the National Science Foundation.
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