In Search of Asteroids: Orbit Calculation and Citizen Science

This book presents the results of the construction and implementation of a teaching and learning sequence on Kepler's laws, their relationship with Newton's laws and their respective application in the classical description of the motion of asteroids in the Solar System. It is evidenced that the activities proposed and implemented in an astronomy workshop in a district educational institution in the city of Bogota, contributed to a better understanding of the topics addressed in the classroom and some of the difficulties that persist in the group are identified and are input to redesign the sequence. On the other hand, in order to provide students and the general public with a context on the importance of identifying asteroids in the Solar System, the citizen science project on the search for asteroids of the International Collaboration - IASC is linked. Regarding the disciplinary part, an optimization of the Gaussian method for orbit determination is proposed, it is found that the proposed method estimates asteroid orbits in accordance with those determined by JPL-NASA.