AMERICAN FORK -- Three American Fork High School are earning accolades for their stargazing.

Bryce Tholl, Clinton McClesky and Karlee Craig identified a combined four asteroids as part of a NASA program tied to their astronomy class.

To find the asteroids, students studied Internet images of space that were taken by powerful telescopes at the Astronomical Research Institute observatory. NASA research scientist Robert Holmes said the telescopes see stars 10 million times fainter t han the eye.

The project's goal is to protect the Earth from the possible dangerous impact of an asteroid, Holmes said. NASA has advanced technology that could alter the path of an identified asteroid, he said.

"This is very important research these students are working on when you realize, only a decade ago, comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 slammed into the planet Jupiter," he said. "If the earth had been the target instead of Jupiter, it would have had devastating results and none of us would be here today."

Each student was awarded with a plaque for their asteroid find and earned the praise of their teacher, Curtis Greg.

Finding an asteroid in space is like finding "needles in a haystack," Craig said.

For their part, Tholl, McClesky and Karlee Craig say their discoveries hasn't raised their status on the high school campus.

"It is really neat, though," said Spencer Baxter, another student who worked on the project. "It will make an impact on the scientific community."