Physics and astronomy majors Halley Darling '13, Lucas Viani '14 and Rachel Almovodar '15, observed at the Arecibo Telescope in Puerto Rico with Associate Professor of Physics Rebecca Koopmann '89.
The observations carried out by the Union team are in conjunction with the ongoing ALFALFA, or Arecibo Legacy Fast ALFA, survey, which is a seven-year project headed by Cornell University to census hydrogen-bearing galaxies in the local universe.
Funding for this trip was provided by the Koopmann collaborative NSF “Undergraduate ALFALFA Team” grant with Colgate University and Georgia Southern University.
This trip also served as part of Viani’s Sophomore Scholar’s Project, as he studied gas and star formation properties of a nearby gravitationally-bound group of galaxies.
All three of these students will continue to work with Koopmann this summer on related research.