Chelen Johnson
Detecting Brown Dwarfs in Interacting Cataclysmic Binaries: Using Spitzer Space Telescope infrared images to determine whether the companion of the remnant star EE Eri (a white dwarf) is in fact a very low-mass object (sometimes called 'failed star') known as a brown dwarf.
I’m excited to tell my students about this research and share my experiences from the [AAS] last week.
High school students are hungry for authentic research experiences, and both high school teachers and students benefit immensely from having contact with a professional astronomer. This may seem inefficient (because it costs a lot of money to connect individuals with professionals), but it can change lives, and there are wonderful ripple effects.
The most interesting thing was the total experience of working with such amazing professional astronomers doing real science. I really did not know what to expect. The experience did exceed, in a positive way, all my imaginations.
