NSF Program Brings Budding Astronomers to BU

BU Today

Many of us thrill to the breathtaking views of outer space permitted by telescopes and spacecraft. But dark matter—the force causing stars to move faster than their mass would allow—poses a pesky problem: you can’t see it. So Carly Snell, aided by the chair of BU’s astronomy department, Tereasa Brainerd, is spending the summer writing computer code to analyze telescopic survey data of the heavens. One goal is to see if the orbits of actual galaxies match those in simulations of dark matter.
Snell doesn’t go to BU; the physics major will be a senior this fall at North Dakota State University, “and my department there does not have astronomy,” she says. The National Science Foundation’s Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program provides aspiring astronomers like Snell the opportunity to pursue this research.
This summer—BU’s third participating in REU—has brought Snell and five other undergraduates from different universities to campus to help professors researching topics in astronomy and space physics. The latter get research help; the students have “the opportunity to wet our feet a little bit in research that a lot of people wouldn’t necessarily get at their home university,” Snell says. (BU’s own students get similar mentoring through the University’s Undergraduate Research Opportunities Program.)
The REU program in the astronomical sciences includes 28 universities, observatories, museums, and other institutions, including BU. Here, the students enrolled in this summer’s program hail from the Universities of Kansas, Maryland, Michigan, North Dakota State, Rochester, and Wisconsin. They spend 10 weeks on campus, studying topics “from the earth to the galaxies,” says Merav Opher, a College of Arts & Sciences associate professor of astronomy and director of BU’s REU program.
Each student is matched with a specific research project so that they can work closely with specific researchers. Students receive a ...

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