Author Topic: UK schoolboy corrects Nasa data error  (Read 910 times)

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Offline EC

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UK schoolboy corrects Nasa data error
« on: March 23, 2017, 10:13:52 pm »
A British teenager has contacted scientists at Nasa to point out an error in a set of their own data.

A-level student Miles Soloman found that radiation sensors on the International Space Station (ISS) were recording false data.

The 17-year-old from Tapton school in Sheffield said it was "pretty cool" to email the space agency.

The correction was said to be "appreciated" by Nasa, which invited him to help analyse the problem.

"What we got given was a lot of spreadsheets, which is a lot more interesting than it sounds," Miles told BBC Radio 4's World at One programme.

The research was part of the TimPix project from the Institute for Research in Schools (IRIS), which gives students across the UK the chance to work on data from the space station, looking for anomalies and patterns that might lead to further discoveries.

During UK astronaut Tim Peake's stay on the station, detectors began recording the radiation levels on the ISS.

"I went straight to the bottom of the list and I went for the lowest bits of energy there were," Miles explained.

Miles's teacher and head of physics, James O'Neill, said: "We were all discussing the data but he just suddenly perked up in one of the sessions and went 'why does it say there's -1 energy here?'"

More: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-39351833
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Offline Idaho_Cowboy

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Re: UK schoolboy corrects Nasa data error
« Reply #1 on: March 23, 2017, 10:38:06 pm »
Good catch.
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