COURTESY ST. ANDREW’S SCHOOLS
Ariana Kim, left, and Sree Kutty excelled in science during high school and have been honored for their work.
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Their partnership was a fine if finite thing, but the lasting legacy of what Ariana Kim and Sree Kutty accomplished as high school science standouts now holds a permanent place in the night sky.
After a year of processing, in late May two minor planets within the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter were given the names of the two 2016 St. Andrew’s Schools graduates.
Kim and Kutty earned the honor as finalists in the environmental engineering division of the 2016 Intel International Science and Engineering Fair. The pair placed second in the division for a project that explored the potential of fermenting invasive algae to produce ethanol, fertilizer and carbon nanotubes.
The former Minor Planet 33587 is now known as Arianakim. The new name for Minor Planet 33590 is now Sreelakshmi (Kutty’s full first name).
Both planets were discovered by the LINEAR Program of the MIT Lincoln Laboratory.
Kim now attends the University of Southern California; Kutty is a student at the University of Hawaii. They received their official certificates from the MIT Lincoln Laboratory and NASA.
