Essex Junction, Vermont -- January 23, 2012
What started as a physics class project blasted into an experiment that may end up going out of this world.
"We're excited, but surprised too. We really liked the idea for our experiment, but we didn't expect it to be one of the top in the world," Grady says.
Grady Ward, Charlie Wu and Colin Watts are AP physics students at Essex High School. Just two months ago, Colin brought in the contest idea and their teacher assigned it as a class project: To design an experiment -- and accompanying video -- for a NASA contest.
"You can have the mathematics but to come up with the creative ideas is special," says physics teacher Scott Pennington.
Special enough that their project made it to the top 10 in the western section of this global contest. The winning experiment will be performed on the International Space Station.
"I just thought that it was a cool concept, to be able to actually have an idea in high school and be able to send it up into space," Wu says.
It's big recognition for these high school seniors. Judges include some international science heavyweights -- Stephen Hawking, to name just one.
"I think the crux of understanding what our experiment is about is understanding binary star systems, which are basically two stars that instead of orbiting one another, they orbit their center of mass. And what happens is the gravitational force between the two is what drives the rotation," Wu says.
The Earth's gravity prevents them from performing this here. But in space, it might be possible.
"If our experiment is correct and we think that we can substitute magnetism for gravity, then they should continue to go on their own despite the fact that they are magnets instead of rotating stars," Grady says.
But, like the actual star systems, they wouldn't continue forever.
"It will be air resistance that will end up leading to their eventual collapse," Grady says.
They hope to also see whether the spin of each magnet causes the breakdown of the system.
"This could possibly describe why binary star systems eventually collapse," he explains.
They're hoping their experiment will help astronomists better understand those star systems.
The regional cut is on February 20, and the winner of the global contest will be announced March 21. If they win this round, they get a trip to Washington D.C. for a zero-G flight. And if they win the global competition, they have a choice between cosmonaut training in Russia or watching their experiment blast off in Japan.
You can vote through January 24 -- to do that, visit their video: http://goo.gl/NlrQ8.
