My name is Naomi Wharton, and I am a freshman (Class of
2019) in Astronomy 17. I am from Lexington, MA, and staying in Wigglesworth. I
am still undecided on my concentration, but at the moment, I am most interested
in exploring physics, mathematics, and astronomy/astrophysics.
Physics, math, and astronomy interest me because of their
shared theme of seeking to understand how the world – and the universe – works.
I find nature on Earth and images of
celestial objects to be beautiful in both their appearance and their complexity.
From my viewpoint so far, physics and mathematics give tools by which we can
describe the world and universe around us, and I am eager to apply these tools
to learn about why the universe and the objects within it are as they are and
act as they do.
I have been long been excited by the idea of astronomy and
astrophysics, but I have never had the chance to take a formal course in
astronomy. During my junior year in high school, I had the opportunity to do a
research project at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics that
combined computer science with astrophysics, looking at how the WISE telescope
reads and outputs data from AGN. My project focused mainly on the programming
aspect, as I had taken neither physics nor calculus at the time, yet I found
the concepts I was learning about fascinating. Now with physics and calculus
classes under my belt, I look forward to exploring this kind of topic in
greater depth through this course and others. Images like the following have
littered my desktop for years, and I am more than excited to begin to
understand where they come from.
 |
| Image Source: http://www.spacetelescope.org/images/heic0910e/ |
Cool research opportunity in high school! Sounds like you’re already well on your way to becoming an astronomer! =)
ReplyDelete