• NASA
  • IPAC

Summer Visit - 2022 - SNAG490

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 SNAG490 team came to visit in June-July 2022. The 5 core team educators attended, plus 5 students.

Quotes

  • [the most surprising thing] was how much the people at JPL, IPAC, and Caltech in general seemed to really like their jobs!
  • Well, it seems like “real astronomy” is analyzing data. Making the satellites and rovers is really more engineering, which I guess I did not realize. I guess I expected to analyze data, but I had no idea how we would do that. So learning all about how to read SEDs and CCDs/CMDs etc. is something I did not realize I would be doing, but it is because before this I did not know SEDs existed.
  • It was surprising to learn how much programming and data analysis are currently dominating the astronomy field. It seems like today’s astronomy is primarily data analysis, no one is actually looking at any stars. I get it, because we’ve pretty much exhausted the visual part of the spectrum, but I had never really thought about it before.
  • [student:] The best thing about this trip was getting the opportunity to experience what actual astronomy is, and participate in real science. I love that I get to continue this research and find things that no one has before.
  • [student:] I feel stupid a lot of the time when doing this work and it felt reassuring to hear Luisa say that it's okay.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2022 - SNAG490