UNC Astro Blog – Day 27

My day started off at 8:40 A.M. when I sluggishly rolled out of bed to get ready for our 9:00 A.M. lecture. Today was our second-to-last Saturday, an exciting but sad milestone. Since we only have about one week of SSP left, I’ve made it a habit to try five new things everyday. Today while walking to Phillips Hall for our lecture, Varshny and I traveled along a pathway we’ve never seen (new thing #1)! Dr. H taught today’s lecture on heavy elements and nuclear fusion processes, which was particularly fascinating. I enjoyed listening to how he fused (no pun intended) chemistry and astrophysics topics, allowing us to see how different fields of science coalesce.

After our lecture, I was starving, so I went to Chase dining hall for lunch with Varshny and Annie. Today, they were serving curly fries, which are arguably one of the best dining hall food selections. We strategically maximized our stomach capacities for food from Franklin Street by restraining from eating everything in sight.

After lunch, we walked back to Old West in the scorching heat as we conversed about our school lore. Varshny and I played some ping pong in the study lounge (I was winning) before she went back up to her room and I migrated to the other lounge. As I was peacefully and breezily relaxing on the couch, I suddenly heard animalistic shrieking and high-pitched voices.

Cyrus, Wei, and Carl had returned from their lunch journey and decided to immerse everyone in their sound-barrier-breaking version of the SpongeBob SquarePants theme song. The remaining time of our wait for Franklin Street was filled with Cyrus’s improving guitar skills and badminton battling in the blazing sun.

Because I had been craving fried chicken for the entire week, I dragged my friends with me to get Korean fried chicken from Bonchon (new thing #2)! We devoured everything until we were completely stuffed. Even though we were unbearably full, we went to playa bowls for dessert—you can never be too full for an açaí bowl!

After coming back from Franklin, we had a badminton rematch before getting dressed for dinner. At the dinner table with Zach today, we talked about the courses we were taking at school and our dream colleges and careers. It was an enlightening conversation, but it definitely reminded me that I have no clue what I want to do in the future.

9:30 P.M. sadly marked Team Honu’s last observation. We haven’t had any luck tracking the asteroid in our past observations, so I was determined to do everything right this time. After we printed, calculated, and analyzed everything we needed, we strutted into the Morehead Observatory hopeful that this observation would be a success. Unfortunately, the elevator was broken (slight foreshadowing), so we walked up the stairs and experienced a beautiful view we’ve never seen (new thing #3)!

(moments before disaster)

We spent around thirty minutes moving the telescope to match our finder chart, but we felt as if we were hitting a roadblock. With Julia’s emotional support, we decided to input an updated right ascension and declination to try to locate our asteroid once again. As the dome rotated to match our inputted location, we realized something was wrong. It wasn’t stopping. After multiple 360 degree rotations and concerningly loud bangs, I started fearing for my life. It was my first time hitting the abort button (new thing #4)!

Apparently, a mysterious John Doe unaffiliated with SSP had come into the observatory before our asteroid observations and tripped over the wires, causing the telescope to stop tracking. The walk back to Phillips was a painful one full of guilt, but a group hug had us feeling better already. As I’m writing this, I’m drinking English Afternoon (a mundane tea name suitable for the mood, and new thing #5).

I think that I can say with confidence that today was definitely a memorable day…

-Jade