2007 - 2008 - 2009

Summer Student Research Teams: In 2010 we plan to host two research teams of one teacher and four students each. Stay tuned for applications to open in early spring 2010.

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2009 - This summer we hosted two research teams.

2008 - As a result of last summer's successful student research program, this year's summer program participants once again teamed up with staff members of the Sloan Digital Sky Survey to learn some astronomy and astrophysics, and to perform analyses of digital photographic images taken with the SDSS telescope in New Mexico. The team, made up of one teacher and four students, spent seven weeks at Fermilab analyzing galaxy clusters. The purpose of this project was to analyze the mass and radius of individual galaxies in a galaxy cluster using weak lensing analysis. To begin, the redshifts of the individual galaxies in a cluster were collected. The red-shift is found using the Bright Central Galaxy (BCG) in the SDSS data (Data Release 6 - DR6). Redshift is a measure of the "shift" of waves toward the red end of the spectrum. It occurs when the source of the waves is moving away from observer, just like Doppler Effect. It is used for measuring distances.

Initially to compare the results, the data in the Girardi catalogue were collected independently from DR6 of SDSS. The resulting graph of Girardi Redshift vs. SDSS Redshift was compiled. The project also compiled the results of the individual mass vs. Girardi Masses, and Mass/Radius ratio vs. Girardi Mass/Radius ratio. After the results were found to be acceptable, the process was used to analyze clusters in the Abell Catalogue. The results from this project are still pending as the project is ongoing and expected to be completed later in the year. Jim Annis was the mentor for the summer research project.

2007 - Under the guidance of physics teacher Vandana Thakur, a team of four high school students spent seven weeks working with images from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey. The objects they were concerned with were interacting galaxies, which can be either colliding or merging. 44,250 images had to be inspected visually and classified as two galaxies, two stars, one star and one galaxy, one galaxy, or three or more galaxies. After the data had been examined a fifth and final time, there were only 20,349 true isolated galaxy pairs, about 46% of the original number. With the help of their mentor, Sahar Allam, the four students used the Java program TOPCAT to create graphs in order to analyze and visually represent their results. One of the most noteworthy diagrams is a 3D map which plotted about 4,500 of the merging galaxies in relation to earth by using spectroscopic redshift data from the SDSS.

Mentor: Chris Stoughton