Metro Students Top Science Fair Winners

Scientists have a pretty good idea where Earth is. But we’ll never know precisely.

Nikita Bogdanov, an 18-year-old Albuquerque Academy senior, has some science to back that assertion up. Computer simulations that led him to the conclusion won him a trip to Pittsburgh to compete in the prestigious Intel International Science and Engineering Fair.

Bogdanov was one of four top students picked for the trip from among about 500 entrants in the 51st Annual Central New Mexico Science and Engineering Research Challenge, held at the University of New Mexico on Friday and Saturday.

Bogdanov used computer simulations to determine the effect of the gravitational pull of relatively small asteroids in our solar system on the much larger planets that orbit the sun. Because the effect of the asteroids is so small, NASA ignores it when it calculates the position of the planets. But Bogdanov’s calculations show it’s possible that the effect of the asteroids’ gravitational pull could throw off the calculations, though not enough to matter — usually just fractions of an inch.

Other top winners announced Saturday were:

⋄  16-year-old Katherine Cordwell, a Manzano High School junior, for proving a mathematical problem involving graph theory;

⋄  18-year-old Travis Crockett, a V. Sue Cleveland High School senior, for demonstrating how telescope observations of distant satellites could be used to monitor their condition, despite the fact that they are so far away all you can see with a telescope is a single point of light;

⋄  15-year-old Soiba Mansoor, a junior at the Albuquerque Institute of Math and Science, who conducted an experiment concluding that the herb gymnema sylvestre can help diabetics.

They also earned a trip to Pittsburgh.