Astrophysics and Astronomy Commons^™

Space Science And Social Media: Automating Science Communication On Twitter, Maia Williams

Honors Projects

This project analyzes how social media is used to engage general audiences in astronomy and space science, as well as ways to improve engagement through automation. Tweets from five space science organizations were sampled. The engagement rate for each tweet was calculated from the number of interactions it received. Accounts that tweet more per day had more followers, and accounts with more followers received more interactions. This project also investigated how to build a Twitter bot to automate science communication. Using NASA Application Programming Interfaces, a Twitter bot was written in Python to tweet images taken by the NASA Mars …

Concentrated Lunar Resources: Imminent Implications For Governance And Justice, Martin Elvis, Alanna Krolikowski, Tony Milligan

History and Political Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Numerous missions planned for the next decade are likely to target a handful of small sites of interest on the Moon's surface, creating risks of crowding and interference at these locations. The Moon presents finite and scarce areas with rare topography or concentrations of resources of special value. Locations of interest to science, notably for astronomy, include the Peaks of Eternal Light, the coldest of the cold traps and smooth areas on the far side. Regions richest in physical resources could also be uniquely suited to settlement and commerce. Such sites of interest are both few and small. Typically, there …

Congressional Committee Resources On Space Policy During The 115th Congress (2017-2018): Providing Context And Insight Into Us Government Space Policy, Bert Chapman

Libraries Faculty and Staff Presentations

Article 1 of the US Constitution assigns the US Congress numerous responsibilities. These include creating new laws, revising existing laws, funding government programs, and conducting oversight of these programs' performance. Oversight of US Government agency space policy programs is executed by various congressional space policy committees including the House and Senate Science Committees, Armed Services, and Appropriations Committees. These committees conduct many public hearings on space policy, which invite expert witnesses to testify on US space policy programs and feature debate on the strengths and weaknesses of these programs. Documentation produced by these committees is widely available to the public, …

An Analysis Of The Debate Over Creation, Evolution, And The Timeline Of The Universe At An Ecumenical Christian University, Mason Pohlman

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

Throughout a significant portion of history and within modern culture, the fields of science and religion appear to be competing for the same holds in a person’s belief system. Universities are where academics and the sciences are the prevailing held truth, while in churches, the Bible reigns as supreme authority. However, in a Christian academic setting, the predominate school of thought in belief systems might turn into a little more of a melting pot. By analyzing gathered personal data (via surveys and interviews), one can begin to piece together the predominate thoughts on the apparent conflict between religion and science …

A Photometric Study Of The South Polar Terrain Of Enceladus, Bereket Daniel Mamo

All Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Other Capstone Projects

Saturn's moon, Enceladus, is a unique body in the Solar System. It is an icy world with ongoing geologic activity that spews out jets of ice particles, water vapor, and other gases from active tectonic fractures (called sulci) near its south pole. Emission from these jets is the dominant source of particles for Saturn's diffuse E ring, which envelops other icy satellites. The south polar fractures are also sources of tidally generated high heat flow. Accurate determination of this endogenic thermal output requires knowledge of the thermophysical properties of the surface, which are reliably estimated by modeling the photometric behavior …

Is Theistic Belief Rational In A Scientific Age? (Research Materials), Holy Cross Libraries

Library Resources for Campus Events

A bibliography of resources available through the Holy Cross Libraries which provide additional information related to "Is Theistic Belief Rational in a Scientific Age," a dialogue between William Lane Craig and Jeff Hester on theism, atheism and science. Craig is research professor of philosophy at Talbot School of Theology and professor of philosophy at Houston Baptist University. Hester is an astrophysicist known for his work with the Hubble Space Telescope and professor emeritus in the School of Earth and Space Exploration at Arizona State University.

This event was one of the Deitchman Family Lectures on Religion and Modernity held at …

Identified Flying Objects: A Multidisciplinary Scientific Approach To The Ufo Phenomenon, Dr. Michael P. Masters

Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences Books

Identified Flying Objects cautiously examines the premise that ‘UFOs’ & ‘Aliens’ are simply our distant human descendants, returning from the future to study their own hominin evolutionary past. This text challenges readers to consider new possibilities while cultivating conversations about our ever-evolving understanding of time & time travel.

Ua66/11/3 Ogden College Of Science & Engineering Physics & Astronomy Student Organizations, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Records created by and about student organizations associated with the Physics and Astronomy.

Application Of Bradford’S Law Of Scattering On Research Publication In Astronomy & Astrophysics Of India, Satish Kumar, Senthilkumar R.

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

The present study is focused on examining the application of Bradford’s law of scattering on research articles published in the field of Astronomy & Astrophysics by Indian scientist during 1988-2017. The bibliographic data was retrieved from Web of Science (WoS) bibliographic data base for different period of time. Total 18,877 journal’s article have been published by Indian scientist in the field of Astronomy & Astrophysics during 1988-2017 which was further retrieved and analyzed separately for different blocks of 10 years as well as for 30 years consolidated too. The core journal of the field was identified. The Bradford law of …

Database Review: Sao/Nasa Astrophysics Data System, Laura Pope Robbins

Publications

Laura Pope Robbins is an advisor for The Charleston Advisor, and the review below is included in Scholarly Commons with the permission of the publisher.

The Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is the premier Open Access research database for astronomy and astrophysics containing over 13 million bibliographic records. These records include journal articles, books, conference proceedings, historical observatory bulletins, and other gray literature. An exceptional feature of ADS is the visualizations it creates, showing author networks, overlapping citations, and frequently occurring terminology giving researchers new ways to explore the literature. It is a unique resource that is as easy for a …

Scientometric Study Of Research Productivity Of Aries, Nainital, Satish Kumar

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This paper describes scientometric study of research productivity of Scientists of Aryabhatta Research Institute of Observational Sciences (ARIES), Nainital. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the research performance of ARIES, Nainital. For this study, the data is collected from Web of Science (WoS) bibliographical database for the period of 15 years from 2001-2015 and analyzed. 574 research paper has been published over 15 years of time in which 510 research publications are in referred journals and 64 research publications are in conferences, symposiums, bulletins etc. This paper identifies the scientists of ARIES those are active; the areas in …

Solar Alignment And The Irish Passage Tomb Tradition, Frank Prendergast

Book/Book Chapter

A succinct and very useful, illustrated, explanatory guide to the phenomenon of solar alignment in the irish Passage Tomb tradition. Includes a listing of where to visit the 15 known astronomically aligned passage tombs in the 32 counties.

Written by Dr Frank Prendergast who is now Emeritus at the Dublin Institute of Technology, where he researches Irish prehistoric monuments and their landscapes from a cultural astronomy perspective. His current interests and publications are on the meaning of the dark sky in the prehistoric past and on the conservation of archaeological landscapes from light pollution.

Heritage Guides are included free with …

Facing The Sun, Frank Prendergast, Muiris O'Sullivan, Ken Williams, Gabriel Cooney

Articles

December 2017 marked 50 years since archaeologist Michael J. O’Kelly first observed the solar illumination of the burial chamber in the Neolithic passage tomb at Newgrange during the period of the winter solstice. O’Kelly subsequently recorded direct sunlight entering Newgrange through the ‘especially contrived slit which lies under the roof-box at the outer end of the passage roof’ on 21 December 1969. The discovery of this historic phenomenon, dating back over 5,000 years, captured the public interest and imagination at that time and ever since. In this major article published in the Winter 2017 edition of Archaeology Ireland (date of …

Ua12/2/1 College Heights Herald, Vol. 93, No. 2, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Administration Documents

WKU campus newspaper reporting campus, athletic and Bowling Green, Kentucky news. This issue contains articles:

• Kast, Monica. Total Solar Eclipse Lowers Temperatures
• Collins, Emma. Students Receive a Gouda Opportunity – Hilltopper Creamery
• DeLetter, Emily. Dean of College of Education to Retire After 28 Years – Sam Evans
• Ziege, Nicole. Student Government Association Has First Meeting of New School Year
• Alvey, Rebekah. New Program Supports First-generation Students – Intercultural Student Engagement Center
• Collins, Emma. Advertising & Public Relations Officially Change Departments
• Gibson, Helen. Hello from the WKU Talisman
• King, Jennifer. Editorial Cartoon re: Donald Trump
• Leonard, Nicole. Your Opinion, Not Theirs …

Ua12/2/1 College Heights Herald, Vol. 93, No. 1, Wku Student Affairs

WKU Administration Documents

WKU campus newspaper reporting campus, athletic and Bowling Green, Kentucky news. This issue contains articles:

• The Great American Eclipse
• Kast, Monica. Timothy Caboni Talks Budget in Meeting with Editors
• DeLetter, Emily. Back Home – Timothy Caboni
• Collins, Emma. Campus Construction Continues with Completion of Restaurant – The Den
• Ziege, Nicole. Student Government Association President Signs Anti-discrimination Letter – Andi Dahmer
• Alvey, Rebekah. New Space Serves as Link to Downtown Businesses – Gordon Ford College of Business
• Henderson, Andrew. Hey, How Are Ya?
• Editorial Cartoon re: Eclipsse
• Huff, Taylor. Eclipse of Morality – U.S. Government
• Gabhart, Ebonee. Analyzing What Constitutes a …

Repository Review: Nasa Pubspace, Laura Pope Robbins

Publications

Laura Pope Robbins is an advisor for The Charleston Advisor, and the review below is included in Scholarly Commons with the permission of the publisher.

PubSpace is a repository of full-text peer-reviewed articles resulting from NASA-funded research going back to 1961. The National Center for Biotechnology Information has integrated PubSpace into PubMed Central, a freely available repository of medical research. Using an established, stable, government-hosted platform for PubSpace seems to make sense. However, the lack of clear branding, an uneven application of phrase searching, and a missing thesaurus of NASA terminology highlights that this integration may not be the best.

Community Astronomy Lab Offered, Becky St. Clair

Andrews Agenda: Campus News

No abstract provided.

Eclipse Display, St. Charles City-County Library District

Space Exploration

Bibliography and photograph of a display of government documents from St. Charles City-County Library District, MO.

Ua35/3 Memoranda, Wku Provost

WKU Administration Documents

2017 memoranda issued by the WKU Provost to faculty and staff via email.

• Faculty Mentoring Award
• Undergraduae Mentoring Award Recipients
• Fall 2017 Modified Class Schedule & the Great American Eclipse
• Strategic Planning

Better Together

DePaul Magazine

Faculty have taken full advantage of the university's innovative intercollegiate grant program, and the resulting research is as interesting and diverse as the collaborators themselves. What is resulting is research on "Patient and Primary Care Provider Perspectives on Recreational and Therapeutic Cannabis Use Within a Changing Socioculltural and Political Context;" a new minor in climate change science and policy; a new class, Communication, Coding and Entrepreneurship; brain inflammation research; and the project "Cosmology Meets Continental Philosophy: Natural Laws and Why There Is Something Rather Than Nothing"

Andrews Professor Helps Find Gravitational Waves: Ligo Research Team Makes International News, Becky St. Clair

Andrews Agenda: Campus News

No abstract provided.

Hpcnmf: A High-Performance Toolbox For Non-Negative Matrix Factorization, Karthik Devarajan, Guoli Wang

COBRA Preprint Series

Non-negative matrix factorization (NMF) is a widely used machine learning algorithm for dimension reduction of large-scale data. It has found successful applications in a variety of fields such as computational biology, neuroscience, natural language processing, information retrieval, image processing and speech recognition. In bioinformatics, for example, it has been used to extract patterns and profiles from genomic and text-mining data as well as in protein sequence and structure analysis. While the scientific performance of NMF is very promising in dealing with high dimensional data sets and complex data structures, its computational cost is high and sometimes could be critical for …

Bayesian Model Testing Of Models For Ellipsoidal Variation On Stars Due To Hot Jupiters, Anthony Gai

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

A massive planet closely orbiting its host star creates tidal forces that distort the typically spherical stellar surface. These distortions, known as ellipsoidal variations, result in variations in the photometric flux emitted by the star, which can be detected by the Kepler Space Telescope. Currently, there exist several models describing such variations and their effect on the photometric fux [1] [2] [3] [4]. By using Bayesian model testing in conjunction with the Bayesian-based exoplanet characterization software package EXONEST [4] [5] [6], the most probable representation for ellipsoidal variations was determined for synthetic data and two systems with confirmed hot Jupiter …

Investigation Of Lunar Subsurface Cavities Using Thermal Inertia And Temperature Maximum To Minimum Ratios, Rachel Ann Slank

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Previous studies have revealed a small number of subsurface cavities, including lava tubes, as well as skylights, lava flow pits, and impact melt pits on the Moon. The interiors of subsurface cavities would have been protected from micrometeorite bombardment, solar radiation, space weathering, and extreme diurnal temperature swings over long periods of geologic time. As a result, subsurface cavities can provide access to pristine crustal samples and stratigraphy. These cavities may also harbor important volatiles, such as water ice, that would enable future exploration missions by relieving many operational constraints, including the supply of propellants and life support. In addition, …

Pre-Mission Input Requirements To Enable Successful Sample Collection By A Remote Field/Eva Team, Barbara A. Cohen, Darlene S. S. Lim, Kelsey E. Young, Anna Brunner, Richard C. Elphic, Audrey Horne, Mary C. Kerrigan, Gordon O. Osinski, John R. Skok, Steven W. Squyres, David Saint-Jacques, Jennifer L. Heldmann

Journal of Human Performance in Extreme Environments

We used a field excursion to the West Clearwater Lake Impact structure as an opportunity to test factors that contribute to the decisions a remote field team (for example, astronauts conducting extravehicular activities (EVA) on planetary surfaces) makes while collecting samples for return to Earth. We found that detailed background on the analytical purpose of the samples, provided to the field team, enables them to identify and collect samples that meet specific analytical objectives. However, such samples are not always identifiable during field reconnaissance activities, and may only be recognized after outcrop characterization and interpretation by crew and/or science team …

Thermodynamic Modeling Of Aqueous Geochemistry Of Chlorine Salts: Application To Stability And Habitability Of Liquid Brines On Mars, Amira Elsenousy

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The WCL (Wet Chemistry Lab) instrument on board the Mars’s Phoenix Lander has identified the soluble ionic composition of the soil at the landing site. Two important ions were detected at the landing site; perchlorates (ClO4-) with a concentration of ~ 2.4 wt% and chlorides (Cl-) with a concentration of 0.54 wt%. Between chloride and perchlorate ions three other oxidized ions exist and called chlorine ions: hypochlorite ClO - (ox. state +1), chlorite ClO2- (ox. state +3) and chlorate ClO3- (ox. state +5). These oxidized ions might be existed as intermediate species on the surface of Mars but remained undetected. …

Impact Of Declining Proposal Success Rates On Scientific Productivity, Ted Von Hippel, Priscilla Cushman, Todd Hoeksema, Chryssa Kouveliotou, James Lowenthal, Bradley Peterson, Keivan G. Stassun,

Publications

Over the last decade proposal success rates in the fundamental sciences have dropped significantly. Astronomy and related fields funded by NASA and NSF are no exception. Data across agencies show that this is not principally the result of a decline in proposal merit (the proportion of proposals receiving high rankings is largely unchanged), nor of a shift in proposer demographics (seniority, gender, and institutional affiliation have all remained unchanged), nor of an increase (beyond inflation) in the average requested funding per proposal, nor of an increase in the number of proposals per investigator in any one year. Rather, the statistics …

Solubility And Detectability Of Hydrocarbons On The Surface Of Titan, Sandeep Singh

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Titan’s thick atmosphere is enriched with organic compounds and its surface holds reservoirs of hydrocarbons. This makes Titan the only other candidate in our solar system (apart from Earth) to have stable liquid at the surface. The stability and characteristics of liquid and ices on the surface of Titan are of high importance in understanding its surface-atmosphere interactions. Titan’s hydrological cycle is similar to what we see on Earth, with the exception of methane (CH4) and ethane (C2H6) taking the place of water. The smoggy atmosphere veils the surface of Titan from the view of Cassini spacecraft, except at seven …

To Apply Or Not To Apply: A Survey Analysis Of Grant Writing Costs And Benefits, Ted Von Hippel, Courtney Von Hippel

Publications

We surveyed 113 astronomers and 82 psychologists active in applying for federally funded research on their grant-­‐writing history between January, 2009 and November, 2012. We collected demographic data, effort levels, success rates, and perceived non-­‐financial benefits from writing grant proposals. We find that the average proposal takes 116 PI hours and 55 CI hours to write; although time spent writing was not related to whether the grant was funded. Effort did translate into success, however, as academics who wrote more grants received more funding. Participants indicated modest non-­‐monetary benefits from grant writing, with psychologists reporting a somewhat greater benefit overall …

An Economic Analysis Of Mars Exploration And Colonization, Clayton Knappenberger 15

Honor Scholar Theses

No abstract provided.