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>>All right ladies and gentleman, mission brief time.
>> So we have four ambassadors tonight. We have Kim Abegglen?
Anna-Melissa Lyons?
Hi, Anna-Melissa.
Robert Black?
David Bloomsness?
>> As far as your planned route of flight, it looks like the most significant winds are
going to be about 60 knots.
>> The cockpit door is always open. Come upstairs and visit. We're always up there, obviously,
so, we welcome visitors anytime!
>> The long leg up in Canada is IRAS03064 plus
something, something, something.
This is a massive star-forming region
that still has deeply embedded objects, and we're going to be trying to actually characterize
these objects.
Then we turn on to V Vul, which is a highly evolved star. It's a yellow supergiant
entering the last stages of its life.
>> This is a stellar merger. It's been thought for a long time that once in a long while,
stars- binaries, orbiting very close together- finally merged.
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[Door slam]
[Background talking]
[Airplane takes off]
[Radio chatter]
[Music]
>> My name is Anna-Melissa Lyons. I am a middle school math teacher in
Brush Prairie, Washington.
>> My name is Robert Black. I'm a high school astronomy teacher and planetarium
director in Medford, Oregon.
>> My name is Kim Abegglen and I'm from Vancouver, Washington. And I teach
seventh and eighth grade sciences.
>> My name is Dave Bloomsness. I am from Medford, Oregon. I'm a locksmith
by trade, but I'm an amateur astronomer by heart. I've been an amateur astronomer for
almost 30 years.
>> Our passion is really
to encourage middle school kids to get excited about math and science.
[Music]
>> I like watching the telescope when we hit turbulence. It kind of dances around. It's
actually holding still and we're moving.
>> When's the last time you guys stayed up till 2 a.m.? The 70s? That doesn't count.
>> The opportunity to ask questions, to be able to investigate and ask, why are things
the way that they are, is what got me into science. And it's the thing that keeps my
interest. There's always a question left to be answered and to gather more information
about, so let's keeping asking.
>> Essentially, we do chopping and nodding because we're overwhelmed by the background.
The sky is emitting. The telescope itself is emitting. Everything, right at the wavelengths
we're observing at. For every one photon we're getting from this target, typically we get
100,000 protons from the sky or from the telescope, so if we just stare at it and take
like a normal digital camera image, we'd see this. We don't see any spectra there at all.
Skylines. All we're seeing is the sky. And then what we do is quickly back and forth,
we do this chopping and such and so that removes the sky. Then we get a nice clean image right
there.
>> So the red is the atmospheric transmission from Mauna Kea. We're going to have this relatively
transparent window here and then it's going to be almost completely opaque in this region
there. Those are the regions where, if you look in the infrared, it's going to be very
bright.
>> I got a chance to go up to the FORCAST instrument where they showed us the difference
between the visible light photo and the infrared data. This one image we were looking at is
the visible light spectrum- it's black because they're looking at a giant dark cloud. With
the FORCAST instrument for the infrared, there's something there.
>> Some of the targets tonight on the list are some of the heavyweights in astronomy.
We're going to look at a supernova, a star that exploded in 2010, or at least that's
when we got to see it here on Earth. I mean those are exciting. That's where all the heavier
elements are created.
>> We're using grism spectroscopy and so what these investigators are trying to do is to
look at all that material that has been blown out and characterize not only what elements
are in that material just to see how much processing has been done, but then also to
look at the dust that is being released and formed in that material that is being blown out.
>> Tonight, we're also going to be looking at an amazing star merger. As I was researching
before tonight, there's absolutely no information on why these two stars would have merged and
what's the mechanism for that. So it's at the edge of science.
>> Before a nova, a star will act peculiar. They found that it was regularly variable
in the patten that is uniquely for eclipsing binaries. It was an eclipsing binary; after
the outburst, no more eclipsing binary. It's kind of open and shut.
I would say that the study of stellar mergers is not even in its infancy. This is kind of
unusual astronomy.
>> The last project was a binary star that's
combining into one. And it's a type of star that doesn't normally do that, and that's
something I didn't even know about before this.
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>> All teachers. We get the when are we ever going to use this or why is this important?
I'm really trying to show them why it's important. How they can use it. How it's applied in the
real world. Astronomy isn't just looking at a star, but it's so much more. It's chemistry. It's math
>> This experience allows me to go back and say, here is what scientific inquiry looks
like in this particular context.
>> I think when a teacher, an instructor, or professor is excited, that excitement is
pretty easy to transfer to your students.
>> This has been a really great opportunity for me. It gives me a deeper appreciation
of astronomy, and it also actually widens my interest in astronomy. I want to learn
more about things that I haven't really delved into.
Then as far as the community, we'll be doing outreach, I'm giving talks, and when we do star parties,
we'll be referring to this as our experience.
>> Imagine the possibilities. I am in a plane, 39,000 feet, amongst scientists looking at
the stars and trying to make sense of the things that they're seeing, trying to gather information.
And this could be you, so keep on studying hard.
[Airplane lands]