RACINE, Wis. -- Three high school students from Wisconsin were notified on Monday that a celestial body they discovered during a science project had been verified as an asteroid.

The students will be able to name the asteroid, temporarily identified as "2008 AZ28," in about four years, according to the Minor Planet Center in Cambridge, Mass., the international authority on known objects in the solar system.

Sophomores at Racine's Prairie School, Connor Leipold, Tim Pastika and Kyle Simpson made the discovery thanks to technology provided from Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Mich., which is also the alma mater of the science teacher, Andrew Vanden Heuvel, school spokeswoman Susan Paprcka said.

"It’s extremely rare and I don’t know if an asteroid has ever been discovered by high school students before," Vanden Heuvel said. "Ninety-nine percent are discovered by professional researchers."

Calvin College has telescopes located in New Mexico that operate remotely and can be controlled over the Internet. Vanden Heuvel explained that the telescopes take digital pictures of the sky -- about one per hour for four hours each night. The students watched the photos as if they were watching a movie in slow motion, keeping close eye on what changes were taking place in the sky.

The asteroid must be observed two nights in a row in order for it to be considered an official "discovery," Vanden Heuvel said.

"Asteroids are not easy to spot," Mr. Vanden Heuvel said. "They are very faint, about 10,000 times fainter than the faintest thing you can see with your naked eyes. You need to know how to look for them."

He estimates that the 2008 AZ28 asteroid takes approximately five years to orbit the sun.

The students also located other potential objects that may be asteroids, and are currently conducting follow-up research.