• NASA
  • IPAC

Summer Visit - 2017 - SIRXS-DEEP

The summer visit to Caltech is 4 days long and is the only time during the year of work when all the participants on the team come together in person to work intensively on the data. Generally, each educator may bring up to two students to the summer visit that are paid for by NITARP, and they may raise funds to bring two more. The teams work at Caltech; the summer visit typically includes a half-day tour of JPL, which is a favorite site for group photos. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

The SIRXS-DEEP team came to visit in June 2017. The core team educators attended, plus 8 students.

Quotes

  • Real astronomy is looking at an object over and over again until you are sure it is what you are looking for. It is making sure the source is reliable and not spending time on objects that don't have enough supporting information. It is using information from one mission to look for objects that need to be studied more with a subsequent mission. It is about trying to tell the story of the universe. I guess when I look back on it I would think there would be so many places to check and recheck and cross check the data.
  • I love the connections and sharing that happen between teachers, students, and mentors. This is the part that I believe makes a successful PD or E/PO project very successful – the interactions and networks that are formed between participants at all levels. It builds a working comfort level and common ground that helps drive and support further collaboration and communication.
  • This experience has changed the way I think about astronomers and astronomy. I know I had an idea of the fact that astronomers used light of various wavelengths and didn't really use as much visible light. This has really brought that home to me and has opened my eyes to just how much data is out there yet to be examined.
  • [student:] The most surprising thing I learned was that astronomy involves lots of chemistry which wasn't obvious when you first think about astronomy.
  • [student:] I did not think that computers would be used as frequently as we used them in our research. I thought we would do a lot more of equation solving and things on paper rather than how much we used the computer.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2017 - SIRXS-DEEP