AP Seminar Student Looking For A Topic

[hb2004]

TL;DR Summary

Hellooooooo I am a rising 11th grader that is participating in my school's AP Seminar program.

Hellooooooo I am a rising 11th grader that is participating in my school's AP Seminar program. As an aspiring astrophysicist, I wanted to do a research project on some sort of topic in this area. Any ideas? Just to give a background of my knowledge/ the level I am at, I am going into AP calculus next year, and I am learning physics for my high school's science bowl! Thanks a bunch in advance!

 

[BillTre]

What are your interests?

 

[berkeman]

Summary:: Hellooooooo I am a rising 11th grader that is participating in my school's AP Seminar program.

Hellooooooo I am a rising 11th grader that is participating in my school's AP Seminar program. As an aspiring astrophysicist, I wanted to do a research project on some sort of topic in this area. Any ideas? Just to give a background of my knowledge/ the level I am at, I am going into AP calculus next year, and I am learning physics for my high school's science bowl! Thanks a bunch in advance!

You could do a survey of the news about black holes, gravitational waves, dark matter, or similar subjects. You could also look through some of the articles at Science News magazine for ideas of recent work in astrophysics:

https://www.sciencenews.org/

 

[aheight]

I recently watched "Black Holes: The edge of everything we know" on Netflix: Netflix trailer. It's the story of how a group used the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) to image a black hole. What's fascinating for me is how the EHT works. It's actually 8 telescopes around the globe that synchronize (all begin swiveling at the same time) focusing on the black hole in M87:

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-blogs/black-hole-files/how-does-very-long-baseline-interferometry-work/

To create this image, an international team combined observations from radio telescopes spread across the globe, from Hawai‘i to Spain and Arizona to Chile. The dishes observed simultaneously, effectively acting as a virtual, planet-size dish, giving them a resolving power equivalent to being able to see a hydrogen atom at arm’s length.

If you find this interesting, try to watch the documentary. Maybe do some research on the basic principles of interferometry. Maybe do a (simple) demonstration of how this works:

The basic principle of interferometry is this: take two telescopes, separated by some distance, and observe an object simultaneously with both telescopes. Light comes from the object as a wavefront, like ripples in a pond created by splashing ducks. The two telescopes will catch a slightly different part of each wavefront. Account for that delay, then carefully add the data together, and you can measure the object's structure with the resolution you’d have from a telescope that is the size of the distance between the two dishes.

Suggest the thread be move to Astronomy forum.

 

[hb2004]

What are your interests?

Thanks for your response! I was looking at something related to any aspect of physics, and if you had any recommendations, I would look them up on my free time and decide. Hope you are doing well!

 

[hb2004]

You could do a survey of the news about black holes, gravitational waves, dark matter, or similar subjects. You could also look through some of the articles at Science News magazine for ideas of recent work in astrophysics:

https://www.sciencenews.org/

Thanks a Bunch!

 

[hb2004]

I recently watched "Black Holes: The edge of everything we know" on Netflix: Netflix trailer. It's the story of how a group used the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) to image a black hole. What's fascinating for me is how the EHT works. It's actually 8 telescopes around the globe that synchronize (all begin swiveling at the same time) focusing on the black hole in M87:

https://skyandtelescope.org/astronomy-blogs/black-hole-files/how-does-very-long-baseline-interferometry-work/If you find this interesting, try to watch the documentary. Maybe do some research on the basic principles of interferometry. Maybe do a (simple) demonstration of how this works:
Suggest the thread be move to Astronomy forum.

ooooooo, sounds super cool. Ill look into it! Thanks a bunch!