Photography: Maddie and Emily

Sundays, as the only days without anything explicitly scheduled, are the days where participants can choose to do with the day as they see fit. However, this Sunday was overtaken with the competitive nature of several participants here on Campus. At 1:00 pm, there was a watch party for the Soccer Euro finals in Foster Hall. This is a huge competition between all of the national teams in Europe. The game today was between Spain and England. While SSP Participant Maddie commented “the game was pretty tame”, other SSP participant Ian proclaimed that, “things got pretty crazy in the last 3 minutes of the game, with Spain taking the lead and winning the game after a long tied score.”

The team of England had a rally of support from many of the kids here on campus. In fact, SSP participant Jinu stated that he felt infuriated by the other participants cheering for Spain. But more interestingly, Maddie felt compelled to cheer for England to support fellow SSP participant, Charlie, who is a local to London. She stated, “I probably wouldn’t have cheered for them if he wasn’t there.”

Charlie was absolutely devastated by the loss for his home country, explaining his emotions toward the subject as gutted. However, he also stated that he had the support of his friends, Jinu and Max, to get him through this deeply troubling time.

An Anonymous participant stated that the friendly rivalry between the three programs here at NMSU became even more heated in light of the game. Many of the kids of Astro 2 and Genomics cheered for Spain, while Astro 1 was left to defend their status as England supporters. 

While this is a huge event for some, many of the participants are not inclined to sport activities, so you can find them working on problem sets in the computer lab. With Astronomy 3 due the next day, and an Orbit Determination code due the day after, the lab was a bustle of light bulb worthy ideas and barely concealed panic. Many of the participants did not have the chance to work the day before, on Saturday, because it was College and Career day. All day, there were speeches from different colleges and other well renowned scientists, sharing their experiences with all three programs. That marked the mid-point in the program, meaning SSP NMSU has officially moved into its second half.

From here, participants will learn more, work more, and finally start to move towards their final project of the program. As for Astro 1, that means starting to create their final codes for orbit determination, which is clear in the shift from paper problem sets to coding ones. 

However, towards the end of the day, many of the participants were able to finish their Astronomy 3 Problem set, meaning they did not have to worry about rushing to complete it tomorrow, when there would be two lectures, a research meeting, and a dorm meeting. With the hard work done for the day, participants moved to the classroom, where movie night was taking place. Along with snacks and drinks, participants enjoyed the movie Contact.

Participant Avantika noted that the stars of the show were the popsicles and ice cream given out. When asked if she enjoyed the live action or cartoon movies better, Other participant Emily stated that she thinks there is a time and a place for each, and she was glad tonight’s choice was a live action. She also stated she thought this movie was a worse version of interstellar. Other participant, Kevin, wholeheartedly agreed with Emily. 

I must admit, while these events were recounted with the air of a spectator, I was not at the soccer event, nor the movie. Instead, I opted to finish Astronomy, Coding, and this writing piece in order to get ahead for the week. Staying on a good sleep schedule here is no joke. And though I can’t say I’m a role model in that department, getting ahead on assignments will give me the chance to do so.

My name is Heather Schwartz, and I am a rising senior from Seneca Valley Senior High School in Harmony, Pennsylvania. I love astronomy, coding, listening to music, and hanging out with friends, especially the ones I have made here at SSP. I am so grateful for the chance to learn from the professors and have this educational experience. It has truly been life changing!

The post Soccer and Science: An Examination of Rivalry Through the Lens of Astronomy Nerds first appeared on SSP International.

Thank you SSP for a memorable 17th birthday and the experience of a lifetime.

Thank you Jasmine and Lauren for making this

-Thinh

The post My Birthday at SSP first appeared on SSP International.

During class, we went over the basics of celestial coordinates and some vector math.

We also visited the planetarium. Visiting the planetarium is one of the most amazing experiences I had in the first two days of SSP because it is the first time that I got to see so many stars (although they are virtual). The moment that left the deepest impression on me is when Dr. C removed the effect of atmosphere on the view of the sky (so that we can see how stars are shining during the day if their light is not refracted by the Earth’s atmosphere) and when we zoomed forward and backward two thousand years to see how our coordinates have changed. Visiting the planetarium is also educational in the sense that we can directly experience what was taught in class (I.e. celestial coordinates, meridian, equation of time).

After dinner we worked on our problem sets, which is a bit challenging for me because it is the first time I learned about celestial coordinates. However, everyone is very friendly and willing to help, so with their help, I eventually understood some of the more difficult ideas. 

Looking forward to observing our asteroid tomorrow!

-Jean

The post My Second day at SSP first appeared on SSP International.

The one thing I didn’t procrastinate at all on, I realized I did completely wrong.

 

When we first learned about the blog posts, I immediately started planning out mine: how great the program was, how I loved learning about astronomy (something I don’t have much experience with), and how much I loved the people. Don’t get me wrong — all of those are still true — but I don’t think what I had planned was nearly enough to capture my genuine thoughts about the program.

 

Starting on the first day, we were already completing asteroid proposals while clicking through countless JPL Horizons settings. To be completely honest, I had no idea what we were doing for a solid two hours. Normally, similar proposals would probably take at least three days at school, but we were only given one. I knew SSP was going to be difficult, but I was still taken aback by exactly how hard it was. One of my most common thoughts throughout the week has been, “I don’t understand this, but it seems so cool.” Everything seemed like it would make sense… until I really thought about it. Maybe it’s because I had done little astronomy before the program. Maybe it’s because what we learned forced us to view Earth and time in a completely different way from what we were used to. Or maybe it’s because I was tired from the lack of sleep. Either way, I would be lying if I said that everything just clicked as soon as I learned it.

And yet, despite the utter confusion and frustration that I felt while working through some of our assignments, I found myself enjoying all of it. From the “ding dong choir” to random drawings on a shared screen (ha ha ha I really tried to remove my background for Dr. Tarter’s talk but I’m kinda bad with zoom sometimes and failed miserably), SSP has already become an experience unlike any other. Even though my computer might explode any day from zoom, vscode (especially vpython), and 100000 chrome tabs open, it is 100% worth it. Or maybe my brain will explode before then, who knows.

 

SSP Online

Having already been through weeks of online school, I was disappointed when I received the email about SSP being online. I was also terrified about how I was going to make new friends without actually seeing any of them in person. However, I was extremely surprised (but in a good way) when my fears proved to be wrong. Below are two pictures of us trying to write out SSP with the telescope app (I tried, but mine didn’t turn out so well LOL).

Everyone here is extremely smart (btw I’m sorry Sarah B for having you explain that one pset problem so many times), but what I find different about them is that it’s not intimidating to talk with them. We’re all here with similar goals, and everyone (including TA’s and the instructors) is extremely supportive and welcoming. Though everyone is trying to do their best, I found the SSP environment to be much more collaborative rather than competitive. Instead of competing against each other to see who can finish the fastest or who can receive the highest grades, we’re all working together so that we can all achieve our goals.

Final thoughts

The first week has been one of the longest, but also fastest, weeks in my life. It was long because I’ve already learned more about astronomy than I had ever before, and because it feels like I have already known everyone for much longer than a week; it was fast because the entire process was so much fun and I genuinely loved the 8+ hours that zoomed by. If even the first week of this program was this amazing, I’m so excited for the coming weeks and what they will bring.

 

Before I end this blog post, I just wanted to say one last thing: watch kdramas (ESPECIALLY crash landing on you, it’s okay to not be okay, or vincenzo)!!!!!

The post The end of the longest, yet fastest week first appeared on SSP International.

(Carlin et. al, Stellar Tidal Streams in External Galaxies)

The substructure in the left column is a great circle, occurring when the orbits of dwarf galaxies are relatively circular. Orbiting at a greater distance from the center results in weaker tidal forces such that the stream of stars is largely undisturbed.

In the middle are shells or plumes, occurring when the orbits are extremely radial. The dwarf galaxy approaches close to the middle of the larger galaxy, resulting in a spread-out structure extending from the center.

And on the right is a mixed structure. This occurs after long periods of time when random gravitational influences of the halo destroy much of the characteristic features of accretion, resulting in a blurry, donut-like shape.

So, if you ever feel peckish during a 5-hour learning block, just reach for the stars! (Or a bowl of chicken newton soup, à la Andrew & Peyton :).

ft – Zhanpei’s friendly reminder pogfish

The post SSPondering first appeared on SSP International.

To be completely transparent, I had absolutely no idea that I volunteered myself to write this first blog. Kimberly had offered a hand-drawn portrait of whoever volunteered first, so needless to say, I confidently took the offer without any knowledge of what it was. Pictured below is the fruit of my labor:

Watching the North Star from a small French Village.

Some data from researching a couple of asteroids.

The correct pronunciation of LaTeX, courtesy of ZP.

A tiktaalik reminiscing about the days in the primordial soup, contemplating whether evolution was truly worth it. Credit to Sarah B for the excellent photoshop.

Mochi + Me!

The post The Beginning of a Journey first appeared on SSP International.