Last month I had the honor again to be a judge at the regional high school science fair comprised of students from the full metro area of the Twin Cities. There were over 200 projects across all disciplines from over 50 high schools (so great to see). Nevertheless, each year I'm usually disappointed (not in the projects) due to the fact that there is typically only one astronomical project in the program.
However, this year was an exception with 6 projects having astronomical ties including 2 that were specifically about exoplanet research. For me personally it was exciting to be able to interview the students on their approach and research. In the exoastronomy realm, one of the two projects focused on improving Apodized Pupil Lyot Coronagraphs (APLC) for direct exoplanet imaging and the other on comparisons of the K2-18b exoplanet's DMS spectra with other known spectral signatures in the HITRAN database.
Just amazing to see the creativity and good science coming out of our high schools!
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