13-year-old’s 2nd big win at Canada-Wide Science Fair
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Name
Arushi Nath
Hometown
Toronto, Ontario
Age
13
Claim to fame:
What would happen if a massive asteroid was on a crash course directly toward Earth?
Would it hit us? Or could we stop it in its tracks?
Thanks to a 13-year-old from Ontario, our chances of protecting ourselves from such an object just got a lot better.
On May 18, Arushi Nath became one of two top winners at the 2023 Canada-Wide Science Fair in Edmonton, Alberta.
She beat thousands of students from across the country to claim the prize.
And guess what? She did the same thing last year!
Organizers say this makes her the first student in more than 30 years to win a best project award two years in a row.
Falling in love with the stars
Arushi has been interested in outer space since she was just eight years old.
“Back then, I’d go out on my balcony and look through my telescope and try to pick out patterns in the night sky, which I later learned were constellations.”
Arushi Nath’s’s award-winning science could one day help protect Earth from incoming asteroids. (Image submitted by Arushi Nath)
She soon joined the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada to get more involved in space science.
“They have a huge telescope in Collingwood, Ontario, which allowed me to look at the sky like never before,” she said.
“This got me fascinated with the subject of astronomy and how I could contribute.”
Defending the planet from asteroids
Arushi began her award-winning project back in August 2022 after becoming interested in the idea of planetary defence.
Planetary defence is the act of protecting the Earth from objects outside our atmosphere.
She learned that hundreds of asteroids that come close to Earth are discovered each month.
But only a handful of astronomers with access to huge telescopes are set up to analyze them.
That’s a problem, Arushi said.
“If an asteroid were on a collision course to Earth, we’d need to know its attributes, like size and strength, to know how to deflect it,” she said.
Arushi was one of two kids who won this year’s top project award at the Canada-Wide Science Fair. They were chosen by more than 239 judges. (Image credit: Youth Science Canada)
Arushi decided to start a project that would allow everyday, amateur astronomers looking through tiny telescopes to analyze asteroids themselves.
This is called citizen science — when everyday people contribute to a project when there aren’t enough scientists to complete it on their own.
Designing the algorithm
Using a coding language called Python, Arushi designed an algorithm.
An algorithm is a set of instructions designed to solve a problem.
The algorithm allows amateur scientists to submit images of an asteroid. Then the program tells them about its size, brightness and other important features.
“I spent around 400 hours designing the algorithm, 200 hours taking images of asteroids and 200 hours plugging those images into my algorithm.”
Once the algorithm was complete, Arushi tested it on a real-world scenario.
A real-world test
In September 2022, the U.S. space agency, NASA, tested its ability to deflect an asteroid.
NASA staff flew their DART spacecraft into a non-threatening asteroid called Dimorphos to see if they could successfully deflect it. The experiment worked.
NASA was able to successfully change the course of an asteroid in September 2022 during its DART Mission. (Image credit: NASA)
Arushi took images of the asteroid before, during and after it was deflected.
She found that her algorithm was successfully able to measure the asteroid’s dimensions at each point.
Why this matters
The good news is, you don’t need to be worried about an asteroid hitting Earth anytime soon.
“Despite what Hollywood movies may lead us to believe, the risk of a collision between an asteroid and Earth is extremely small,” says the Canadian Space Agency on its website.
The Canada-Wide Science Fair shows “the important role that youth play in developing innovative knowledge and solutions that will help future generations,” said Reni Barlow in a news release. He’s the executive director at Youth Science Canada.
Arushi accepts her top project award at the 2023 Canada-Wide Science Fair for her project that could one day help us deflect asteroids headed toward Earth. (Image credit: Youth Science Canada)
Taking home the big prize
There were nearly 400 finalists from all over the country at this year’s Canada-Wide Science Fair.
Arushi was one of two people who won the award for top project.
“It felt really amazing to see that my work was awarded at such a high level after 800 hours spent on this project,” she said.
This was on top of last year’s win, which was also for a project about identifying unknown asteroids.
Arushi said the win has inspired her even more to keep going further as a scientist.
She said her next step is to represent Canada at the European Union’s Contest for Young Scientists in Belgium in September.
She’ll be competing with other kids from around the globe.
“I’m going to try my best there and see if I can take it home for Canada.”
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NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
