Polish students discover 10th asteroid this year. 

 The tenth asteroid has been discovered by three lower secondary school students from Nicolaus Copernicus Lower Secondary School in Sierpc, Poland. The young discoverers, Marek Urbanski, Patryk Stanczak and Bartosz Zielinski, all three from class III c, found the object in images provided for the school within the framework of the "International Asteroid Search Campaign". Students work under the supervision of their IT and physics teacher - Józef Urbanski.

 Polish schools, including the one in Sierpc, participate in the IASC Campaign within a wider EU-HOU programme, which in Poland is coordinated by the Center for Theoretical Physics of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Within the programme students are equipped with modern didactic tools facilitating educational efforts in sciences, for example, computer programs for astronomical observations by means of web-cams or programs for the remote control of telescopes and radiotelescopes.

 Polish young astronomy enthusiasts have so far discovered 10 asteroids this year. The spring edition of the International Asteroid Search Campaign resulted in 6 Polish discoveries, with the students from the following schools becoming new discoverers: Secondary School No. 13 in Szczecin, Tadeusz Czacki Secondary School No. 27 in Warsaw and Secondary School No. 10 of the Stefan Banach Complex of Schools in Torun.

 The same schools joined the autumn edition of the programme, which resulted in yet next discoveries: 2 planetoids have been discovered by the Warsaw and Szczecin schools, with another two recent discoveries credited to schools from Torun and Sierpc.

 "The discovery made by students from Sierpc means a lot to us. It's been for the first time in the history of the project that these are students from a small, as opposed to a big town that have discovered a new planetoid. This proves that schools from smaller towns situated far from urban areas also have the potential, which has not been realised in full until now" - emphasised Professor Lech Mankiewicz, the coordinator of the EU-HOU programme in Poland.