Undergraduate Abstracts 2020 AAS Meeting, Honolulu, HI

In recent years, millimeter wavelength observations of protoplanetary disks around young stars have revealed substructures. These structures include asymmetries, gaps, and rings that could be indicative of phenomena creating gas pressure maxima which trap...

Gravitational microlensing is a powerful tool to study invisible objects, such as black holes, in the Milky Way. By monitoring highly populated areas like the Galactic bulge region, one can observe a variety of microlensing events due to brown dwarfs...

The Theory of General Relativity (GR) is very well-tested on local Solar System scales, but tests on the largest cosmological scales have been limited by the volume and precision of existing galaxy surveys. This situation is expected to change in the...

With the discovery of over 4000 exoplanets, we are now able to conduct detailed studies of planet demographics. Interestingly, a possible dichotomy has developed, where hot Jupiters on longer orbital periods (between 5 and 15 days) tend to be more massive...

The Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics manages the comprehensive paper database Astrophysics Data System (ADS), which hosts nearly 15 million records, each with detailed citation and impact metrics. The Astronomy Image Explorer, hosted by AAS, is...

E+A galaxies are post-starburst galaxies that have recently undergone quenching of their star formation and now lie in the “green valley” transition zone, making them a valuable source for studying the evolution of galaxies. Using data from DR15 of the...

The National Science Olympiad is the United States’ largest K-12 science competition, reaching over 250,000 students at nearly 8,00 schools in all 50 states. Competitors participate in a variety of events designed to prepare students for STEM careers by...

We developed a new analytical method to identify potential missed planets in multi-planet systems found via transit surveys such as those conducted by Kepler and TESS. Our method depends on quantifying a system’s dynamical packing in terms of the...

Asteroseismology, the study of stellar pulsations, provides great insight into a star’s physical parameters, and with different computational methods, we are able to estimate the unknown characteristics of stars (like chemistry or age). In this project...