Searching
for planets with software I designed.
Jessie
Christiansen
The high point of my April 12th was meeting with my supervisor
(I am an astrophysics postgraduate student)
and explaining to him the improvements I had been making to
our software.
For the last two weeks I had been writing and fine-tuning
some routines to optimise an important early step in our data
reduction process. Finally, after all my detective work ironing
out the bugs, I was able to show my supervisor how far the
software had advanced.
My project involves searching for planets
around other stars by detecting the very tiny changes in brightness
of a star when a planet eclipses the star. Any improvement
in the precision of our data makes these changes easier to
see, which is a huge plus for us. He was extremely pleased
with the progress I had made, and we discussed several more
directions in which the software could be improved.
As a postgraduate student, I am undertaking a large research
project, which in this case is searching for extrasolar planets.
My project involves choosing stars to target, observing the
stars with our telescope, analysing the data taken with the
software I had been updating, and searching through the finished
data for signals of planets.
After I complete my doctoral thesis on this project, I will
most likely follow the traditional path into academia – finding
a postdoctoral position, which is usually a contract for a
few years under another researcher, then making my way up
the academic ladder – researcher, lecturer, professor.
It all sounds so easy when you lay it out like that! So how
did I get into a field like astrophysics? I was always interested
in science in school, and was reasonably sure I wanted to
get into some kind of research field – sitting behind a desk
adding up numbers for years didn't sound like fun to me!
I grew up in the country in Queensland, where the sky is on
show for you every night, and was in the astronomy club at
school.
There were a few wrong turns on the way – I started out doing
a degree in biotechnology before realising it definitely wasn't
for me, but eventually I found myself doing a physics and
maths degree and starting postgraduate studies in astrophysics.
So don't be afraid to try a few things before you make your
final decision! No one knows exactly what they want straight
away. |
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