Field trip to PAN Star research center

In the last class period we visited the astrology center near our school and it was incredibly interesting. I enjoyed looking at all the lenses that they were building and hope to get an internship there looking for meteorites in the night sky. When we began our field trip I thought that it was going to be about stars constellations and just a long talk and a power point presentation about the night sky however it became a lot more interesting. We were allowed to visit the labs and see how they were built which was interesting.

 

One of the three things that I took away from the field trip is the true dangers and the possible damage of a meteorite strike on the earth. I didn't know that most of the damage caused by a meteorite that has crashed on earth is actually caused by the shock wave that occurs after the meteorite hit the earth.

 

The second take away that I received from the field trip is that at a work shop everything for the high powered telescope is created by hand and it is individualized. I saw the mechanic at the work shop working on a modified L-bracket and it was a very tiny piece.

 

Another take away that I received from the last field trip was that nasa uses about a million dollars on an individual camera. The camera had gold in the lenses which makes it cost so much. I had no idea that it costs so much money to send up a camera into outer space.

 

 

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