Charlotte Reynolds - October 9th 2012
Core Earth Science - Ms. Davies
Romero, Simon. “At the End of the Earth, Seeking Clues to the Universe.” New York Times. 7 April 2012. <http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/08/world/americas/high-in-chilean-desert-a-huge-astronomy-project.html?_r=0>
The article that I read for current events relates to astronomy and the study of stars. 16,597 ft above the plateau in the Atacama Desert, scientists have built one of the largest ground-based astronomical projects. This project filled with satellites and antennas, was designed to study parts of the universe that are dark, like the clouds of cold gas from which stars are formed. This does not detect optical light so it can focus on the dark light and hope to see where galaxies were formed. This project also detects the solar systems with the conditions to support life, like water baring planets. However, with all these studies using expensive equipment, the ALMA, or the ground-based project, cost over $1 billion dollars to create. Other countries are trying to mimic this experiment in Chile. Many scientists from all over the world come to take part in the study of Astronomy. The ALMA has brought new studies to our history. For example, in 2010, the ALMA discovered the world’s largest star observed to date. Although finding out new facts about space was intriguing, the journey to get here was not. Using a facility of living quarters near the project, about 500 people were able to board for a small period of time. Life in this desert was not easy. People related the feeling of being on it to the feeling you get when you complete a marathon. Legs are wobbly and shaky and the human body feels week after doing nothing. Along with nosebleeds and headaches due to the high altitude, this project in the Atacama Desert was all worth wild and gave valuable information to our scientific studies today.
I chose this article because I was scrolling down the New York Times website, the cover picture of all the satellites stuck out at me. There seemed to be so many and I wondered the reason behind it. As I read on, it caught my attention about how disconnected these space projects need to be from society in order to be accurate. The nearest town from the ALMA is about a 30 minute drive away. In the article, it states that here is very little light pollution so the sky is vivid and clear every night, not including dust storms. The climate and weather was a reason why this huge experiment wasn’t as fun. However, I valued the fact that people would go the extra step to make history in science. New discoveries were made including the largest star found in 2010. This project also focused on what many people ignores, which was the dark parts of space and trying to find what is in it. All these technologies and inventions really add knowledge to our society that benefits the better understanding of how this Earth was even created and to me, that’s interesting!
Overall I thought this article was well written. However, there were some parts of it that didn’t seem quite relevant to the main topic. I wish the author could have included a little more information. The new discoveries were interesting, but I wish there was more. I liked the way he set up the article though. It was well spaced out and always kept my attention, due to the fact that some articles are hard to read. This is where the evidence to the topic of the article was lacking. But overall it was a fun article to read!
Sean Flanagan 10/18/12
ReplyDeleteCore Earth Science 1H Comment
I read Charlotte Reynolds review of the article, “At the End of the Earth, Seeking Clues to the Universe”. I thought she did a good job capturing my attention with her first few sentences. I was scrolling through the blog, and this is the one that caught my attention because of the first sentence. I instantly wanted to know more. Charlotte also did a good job of keeping me interested after she had already hooked me with her first sentence. I was engaged the whole time I was reading it, and could follow her thoughts well. Finally, Charlotte was good at “dumbing down” the information that she read in the article. Even though I haven’t read it myself, I think I still have a fairly accurate assumption of the general idea.
Charlotte educated me about the astronomical base that is set up in the Atacama Desert. I did not even know such a place existed. It was a surprise to me that I had not heard about it. She also did a good job of explaining what it was. If I had happened upon a story about this base, I probably would not have understood its scientific importance. Charlotte also taught me about the things the astronomical base is looking for. I did not know that a land based facility could detect planets that would have water or planets that can support life. I thought scientists had to send up probes with instruments to find planets with water or planets that can support life.
Charlotte wrote a good review of an interesting article that intrigued me and excited my curiosity. She was enthusiastic about the topic she researched and seemed knowledgeable about it. However there were a few spelling and grammatical errors. That disrupts the flow of a good piece of writing and distracts the reader. Other than that, I think Charlotte did a good job of reviewing this article.