For six city kids, the sky's the limit

telescopes hitherto available exclusively to the likes of the national aeronautics and space administration (nasa) in usa will now be at the sparing disposal of 40 schools worldwide, hand-picked from member countries of the commonwealth. the premium list includes two indian schools, both mumbai-based, namely cathedral and john connon, as well as jamnabai narsee.part of the international school observatory (iso), a coming-together of liverpool john moores university, japanese bisei spaceguard research centre and british council, two students from cathedral and four from jamnabai narsee will be allowed access to a still-to-be operative robotic telescope, located on the british canary island, las palmas. the telescope is remotely operated by the liverpool john moores university. the students can also use the twin telescopes installed at bisei spaceguards centre, japan. both the telescopes are unique in that these are connected to the internet. the liverpool telescope, sporting a two-metre aperture is billed as the largest of its kind, ever. it is capable of reverting high resolution images of far-placed planets' atmospheres back to earth on computer monitors. visibly excited standard 12 cathedralites, debottyam mukherjee and prashant radhakrishnan, are using the precedence for two projects, one to do with the cloud structure of uranus, and the other, to discern near-earth objects like asteroids. the second project, they say, which is the aggressive focus of institutions like nasa, will help avoid a very likely crisis of a three km asteroid hitting earth, capable of wiping out humanity. the jamnabai narsee squad comprising standard nine pupils salil joshi, bhavna molia, rammika kaur, and jehan mehta are working on projects involving the crab nebula, saturn and jupiter. equally excited, they were unanimous in claiming that access to the telescopic images from the liverpool and japanese telescopes over the net was, besides being a progressive vista for research, a great motivating factor. dr mayank vahia, director, nehru planetarium, overseeing the students' research, said, "these telescopic images will enable students to undertake research projects in astronomy at a very young age, holding them in good stead for a luminous career."