Chelen Johnson
The goal of SHIPs (Searching Herschel Images for Protostars) is to find and identify stars in the earliest phases of formation in NGC 281, a.k.a. "the pac-man nebula". These stars will help us understand the history of the star formation process in that region.
I was surprised at the number of young people. [..]I am used to seeing older people as astronomers as we watch Nova and other videos or read about past astronomers in class.
I met a lot of people over the course of [my first AAS]. So many people were interested in chatting, especially with a high school physics teacher!
Being able to be physically present at Caltech and the AAS expanded the impact of this program significantly. It was in these settings, in particular, where one could see how the scientific enterprise typically works and how ideas are often shared.
