For the past several months, over 2,000 teenage students across the United States have teamed up with space scientists to study Jupiter’s radiation belts. After operating scientific instruments, collecting data, and writing scientific reports, these youngsters now have a taste of what it’s like to be professional astronomers. Today, in fact, a few of these young astronomers will present their results to scientists at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

Through a partnership involving JPL, NASA's Deep Space Network, and the Lewis Center for Educational Research, the Goldstone Apple Valley Radio Telescope GAVRT project has brought hands-on astronomical research into America’s middle and high school science classrooms.

The 110-foot-diameter GAVRT is located in the Mojave Desert, not far from Barstow, California. What is now a state-of-the-art radio telescope was once a communications antenna used by NASA for tracking spacecraft. It was decommissioned in 1994 when new, more powerful antennae were built. The antenna would have been dismantled but the Lewis Center recommended that it be converted into a radio telescope, accessible to secondary science students from far and wide. NASA agreed.

JPL engineers, who now maintain GAVRT, designed special software so that students can remotely control the radio telescope and download data via the Internet on classroom computers.
The first classroom project under the GAVRT program was called "Jupiter Quest.” And today, a few GAVRT students will report results from this project at JPL. From November 2000 through March 2001, different classrooms took turns studying various parts of Jupiter at two specific microwave frequencies. From the data they collected, the students were able to derive the

temperature of clouds in Jupiter's atmosphere. They also measured the intensity and changes in the radiation belts that surround the giant, gaseous planet.

“I’ve been observing Jupiter for 30 years now and the data these kids have obtained is some of the best I’ve ever seen,” says Michael Klein, a JPL radio astronomer and science adviser to the project. The GAVRT project data has served NASA scientists and mission specialists in important ways, Klein says. For example, the students’ ground–based radio measurements were compared to similar readings taken by the Cassini orbiter’s radiometer during its Jupiter flyby in December. NASA mission specialists were then able to tweak and calibrate the orbiter’s

radiometer for its upcoming study of Saturn. The information gathered about the giant planet’s radiation belts will help NASA plan safe trajectories for future spacecraft exploring Jupiter and its many moons — intense radiation can damage exploratory probes and their sensitive scientific equipment.

“Not only have these students been part of our team, but the kids can trust that their data won’t get tossed in the waste basket at the end of the semester,” says Klein.

Chase Cox is a 13-year-old student participating in the GAVRT project at Opelika Middle School in Opelika, Alabama. "When I think about what we're doing, it's amazing, because we were collecting data that scientists will be using years from now," she said.

Opelika science teacher Farrell Seymore said the project has helped his students understand that science is a process of learning, not a set of facts to memorize. “When you are studying something real and it's not simulated, things don't always go the way you expect," he said. "That encourages the kids to use critical thinking skills and try to figure out what the problem is. It's a great experience for them." The students will present their findings to the JPL team that maintains and operates Cassini's radiometer. Tracy Sibbaluca, a 14-year-old eighth grader from Detroit, looks forward to meeting these scientists, but she can't wait to see the big radio dish in the Mojave Desert that she helped to operate from a classroom computer at Detroit's University Public School.