ncmns – CA Work Experience Program

6/3: Finishing Up My Project!

I was finally able to wrap up the research project I’ve been working on in the lab, because today is my last full day for right now. I will hopefully be going back in the fall to work more though! The research project I’ve been working on in OpenSpace, as I think I mentioned in a previous post, is about the different small body (asteroids, comets, dwarf planets mostly) and what differentiates them from one another. I also gave a lengthy overview of the different types of craters and some famous craters on Earth. It total it’s not quite 13 pages, but I’m quite happy with how it turned out, and Dr. Smith is turning it into the NASA OpenSpace team for me. If anyone is interested in reading it, I have attached it here: WEP_ Asteroids, Comets & Craters (2)

It has a lot of pictures from OpenSpace inside of it, for example my featured image for today and the other attached picture below are both examples of images I used in my paper.

6/2: Alienware

The lab has a lot of computers in it, and each one is used for something different, so that means there are also a lot of different types of computers. The PCs are better for handling huge programs in the lab, while the Macs are better for running the lab displays. We use a special hardware called the Alienware, which is a Dell product, for running OpenSpace because it is such as a large program with so many JPL data sets in it. I use an Alienware laptop (it’s giant and really heavy) supplied by the lab in conjunction with my school laptop to get my research done, but there is another Alienware computer in the lab that is a desktop. Alex, one of the other graduate interns, uses the Alienware desktop but unfortunately it’s been having some issues and keeps getting the blue screen of death. Apart from working on my research, Alex and I spent like an hour on the phone with Dell earlier today, trying to get it to work, but I think it needs to be sent off to a repair center!

6/1: Tisserand’s Parameter

I had a college meeting with Ms. Sellers this morning, so I didn’t get into the lab until about noon. That was alright though, and I was finally able to pick up my parking pass and get to work on the comet section of my research paper. In exploring the comet data sets in OpenSpace, I came across an interesting astronomical concept known as Tisserand’s Parameter.

Tisserand’s Parameter is known to be a measure of the orbital motion of an object flying through space (usually used for a comet or asteroid) in relation to a larger body (usually Jupiter, designated T subscript J). This parameter is dimensionless and takes into account orbit eccentricity, object inclination, and the orbit’s semi-major axis. For the most part, Tisserand’s Parameter remains constant for an object/small body (comets and asteroids are known as small bodies) lifetime. Anyways, I thought that was really interesting and I’m trying to work it into my paper because I think it’s a fun concept to explain. Also I have attached two pictures: one of me in the lab, and the other of me on the bridge between NEC (Natural Exploration Center, more exhibit focused, interactive wing of the museum) and NRC (Natural Research Center, wing of the museum where all the research is done and labs are. I work in NRC).

5/28: The Cinnamon Roll Impact Crater- Tenoumer

This image is the Tenoumer Crater in Mauritania, which is in the middle of the Sahara Desert. It looks like a cinnamon roll! I had a fun time learning about this guy, whose interesting shape is due to the surrounding rocks melting once the asteroid impacted the Earth. Originally scientists posited that it was simply the remains of an ancient volcano and solidified lava, however as it turns out that doesn’t make as much sense because the inside of the crater looks like a simple impact crater does. The picture below is just a close up picture of the crater when standing in the center and looking towards the horizon, taken in OpenSpace.

5/27: First Day in the Lab!

It’s my first day in the lab! I’ve included some pictures below that are cool, but even those don’t quite encapsulate how interesting of a place North Carolina Museum of Natural Science is. It’s very a interactive place and really very beautiful, if you’re someone who loves science.

I had a bit of a hard time parking because I’ve never parked in the city by myself before, but I eventually found some public parking that will hold me over for the day. The lab is made of glass, kind of like the study rooms in the library at CA, just bigger.

5/26: How many Impact Craters are really on Earth?

I made progress on my project for Dr. Smith today, which I have appropriately titled “Remarks on Terrestrial Craters and the Components of the Asteroid Belt”. I got a good ways into my introduction on Impact Craters, and I revisited a lot of the information that I learned in USAYPT this past year when we also had to investigate impact craters, so it was nice to be familiar with much of the material.

However, one interesting thing that I learned when writing the introduction was the there are apparently almost 170 known impact craters on Earth!

The operative word there is “known”, because impact craters can be millions of years old and erosion plays a big role is shaping the land over time. This means that there are likely many impact craters that existed on Earth a long time ago that we will never really know about because the evidence of their existence has been smoothed out over time. Imagine that!

5/25: Different Types of Asteroids

Earlier this morning I played around with the data sets in OpenSpace in hopes of determining whether there is data that represents height of landmasses over time. I hoped OpenSpace would have this information, because it could then be used to determine the rate of change over several years for land formations created by impacts, and then 3D modeled in the project that I wrote yesterday’s proposal on. Unfortunately, OpenSpace did not have this capability, so I moved on to organizing the paper I will be writing over the next several days for Dr. Smith. My paper will use OpenSpace to investigate and categorize the different types of asteroids and comets found in the asteroid belt, as well as touch on some notable impact crates here on Earth. The asteroid data set works on my computer, but it is an extremely large data set and therefore works more effectively on bigger lab computers, so it is possible that I will be able to go into the lab in the next few days to work on the asteroids data set there instead.

The picture to the left shows my screen, where I was working with the Haley-type comet data set specifically. Haley-type comets are periodic comets, which is a general classification that means the comets have an orbital period of anywhere between 20 and 200 years.

Another interesting thing that I learned today is that asteroids are divided into two categories by location of their orbit– Main Belt asteroids and Near-Earth asteroids. The vast majority of asteroids are in the Main Belt, but Near-Earth asteroids are then divided into 4 further categories–Amor asteroids, Apollo asteroids, Aten asteroids, and Atira asteroids. Amor asteroids have an orbit that is outside of Earth’s but inside of Mars’; Apollo asteroids have an orbit with semi-major axes that are greater than Earth’s; Aten asteroids have semi-major axes that are smaller than Earth’s; and, Atira asteroids have orbits that are smaller than Earth’s and entirely contained within Earth’s orbit. The diagram to the right illustrates all of this, except Atira (I could not find a diagram for it). I can’t wait to keep working on my paper and in OpenSpace!

5/24: OpenSpace & The Vredefort Crater

I spent the morning and early afternoon of my first WEP day with North Carolina Museum of Natural Science’s Astronomy and Astrophysics Department crafting a project proposal for my mentor, Dr. Rachel Smith. This included working in OpenSpace, a program that attempts to catalog and visualize the entire known universe. OpenSpace is a NASA-funded project through the American Museum of Natural History I’ve been working with Dr. Smith on for several months, and today I used it to pull in data on the asteroid belt and various Earth craters to create a project proposal for the animated 3D-modeling of the impact of the Vredefort Crater in Johannesburg, South Africa.

The picture to the left is a screenshot of OpenSpace when I used it to look at the mountains to the west of Mono Lake in California.

Additionally, I looked at the Vredefort Crater in NASA worldview because it was a little faster to get distance measurements than in OpenSpace, and you can see that in the image the right

At the end of the day I had a zoom call with Dr. Smith to discuss the project proposal and make some tweaks to it, as well as make plans for the rest of the week and discuss when I might be able to come into the lab and work. I had a really great first day, and I’m super excited to continue my research over the next two weeks!