HHS Junior Advances to Intel International Science and Engineering Fair

Harrison High School junior Keon Azar has been selected to present his HHS Science Research work at this year’s prestigious Intel International Science and Engineering Fair in Los Angeles, California on May 14th. Keon’s topic in the Physics and Astronomy category is “Evaluation of Exoplanet Detection Method: The Limits of Current Knowledge.”

“I have always been interested in the universe and its workings,” said Keon. “I am a really curious and inquisitive person and am drawn to challenging and complicated information. While the field of astrophysics is vast, I love every subtopic within it. Reading tons of books and watching videos of other physicists, such as Stephen Hawking, further motivated me to try to make my own progress in the field. My mentor (Sarah Brown an astrophysics major at Brown University) and I noticed gaps in knowledge in the field of exoplanet research weren’t explicitly identified, so I conducted my specific study to try to solve that problem.”

According to Keon and his study, an exoplanet is a planet - like Earth and Jupiter - except outside our solar system. The field of exoplanet research, Keon explains is relatively new, first booming in the early 1990s when the Hubble Space Telescope made the discovery that all stars in the Milky Way galaxy have at least one exoplanet orbiting them. However, it is difficult to detect them and analyze them with current methods.

Through two methods of analysis – an analysis of scatter plots and a statistical analysis using a Poisson Distribution- Keon concluded that current technology is incapable of detecting exoplanets with masses less than 1 Mjup (mass of exoplanets is measured relative to the mass of Jupiter), masses greater than 10Mjup and exoplanets that are greater than 150,000,000km away from their parent star.

“By drawing these universal conclusions, it provides astrophysicists developing new technology with a guide of what areas need to be addressed and fixed in the new technologies of the detection methods,” Keon explains. “The main goal is for this research to encourage the discovery of exoplanets that have not been previously discovered, which would be a big step for the field as a whole.”

Keon placed in the top 12 at the Westchester Science and Engineering Fair to advance to the Intel International Competition, where his research will be compared with those students from around the globe.

“It had been a dream of mine to go to Intel, one I believed was unachievable as the competition is insane. I always looked up to it as an outstanding experience that I wanted to be a part of but I never thought that I would ever go,” said Keon. “So when they called my name I was astonished! It was especially heartening to see all of my friends and teachers so excited and happy for me. I am beyond happy for all of the HHS students’ collective success at WESEF. I love working alongside all of my extremely intelligent and bright peers who inspire me to work harder and succeed along with them.”