Asteroid "Jenny."( asteroidoccultation.com)

How big is an asteroid? It's not like you can just run out with a tape measure and figure that out.

It turns out, if you can find it and you know when it might pass in front of a star, it's not that hard to do. And a lot of students and citizen scientists like to do it.

Chris Anderson is the coordinator at the Centennial Observatory at the Herrett Center for Arts and Science at the College of Southern Idaho. He's been trying to find and measure asteroids for ten years, and he's going to talk about his research Friday night at Boise State's First Friday Astronomy. His talk is called "In the Shadows of Asteroids: Steller Occultation Observations at the College of Southern Idaho," and he joined Idaho Matters for a preview.