Georgia College and State University Astrophysics Day 18: Barnes & Noble
Today we reached a pivotal step in finding the orbital determination for our asteroids! Now, we just have to code it… In the morning, one of our professors gave a lecture that went over how to find the parameters of our asteroid and use those to find the predicted orbit.
In the afternoon, one of the TAs gave a presentation on coding. I give my variables whatever name pops in my head at first, so it was good to get some clarity on how to organize code. We did an activity where a messy, unorganized .py file was given to us, and we were supposed to change it to achieve two goals: readability and modifiability. Our group achieved this by making the processes for the orbital path standardized, but we should have implemented more helper functions to make the code more flexible.
A lecture was rescheduled, so we had an extra hour of free time! (which is normally 4:00 to 5:30) A TA brought us to a nearby Barnes and Noble/campus store. As you can probably maybe tell by the pictures, it was awesome. My friends all got kinder eggs and we opened them together before the work session. At the store, my classmate from Beijing was on a call with her friends, so I was able to practice my Mandarin with some more people!
Tonight, I am going to be observing with my group, the Black Hole Bovines, from 12:00 to 1:00. As per the photo below, this is the dream team. I am hoping to get a picture of some awesome stuff! Maybe a nebula or galaxy if we have time.
Thanks for reading my blog! SSP is an awesome place.
