Joaquin s's Senior Project Blog

Project Title: 2025: A Space Odyssey: Exploring the Outer Reaches of the Universe
BASIS Advisor: William Quiroz Mendez
Internship Location: Gilbert Rotary Centennial Observatory (Claude Haynes, Director), Planetarium at Mesa Community College (James Enos, Director), Southwest Student Research Consortium (Douglas Walker, Advisor and President of Astronomy Association of Arizona, Astronomy Association of Arizona (Ken Spencer, Founding Board Member)
Onsite Mentor:



Project Abstract

Since the beginning of human existence, we’ve had our eyes trained on the stars. Something about space has always fascinated people and resulted in study throughout history. From the “basic” observations of Pythagoras to the brand spankin’ new James Webb Space Telescope, we’ve always been looking and trying to understand. And now, astronomy has sucked me in, much like a black hole would. In my project, I will be coming at the topic from the two most important approaches, those being research and outreach. Obviously, it’s important to conduct research and learn more about the complexities of the universe, and I will conduct research of my own on binary stars. It is also very important to let others know about astronomy, and to teach aspiring astronomers about the universe. I will do this by creating a curriculum for homeschooled students and working at outreach events like night sky watches. After getting hands-on experience with different aspects of astronomy, I will have created a solid foundation for a future of training my eyes on the sky. 

    My Posts:

  • Watching the Weather

    Hey everyone, how's it going? Today I figured that since I've been complaining about the weather and how when it is cloudy, astronomy can't easily be done, I figured I could tell you a bit about how amateur astronomers like myself keep track of all of it. We typically consult tables known as clear sky... Read More

  • An Uneventful Week Part 2: Electric Boogaloo

    Hey guys, If I'm being honest, nothing really happened this week. It's mostly because I went on a college tour this past weekend, so I missed out on most of the days to work at my internships. But besides that, nothing new happened otherwise. I just continued making progress on my group's research paper, and... Read More

  • Interesting Inquiries

    Hey everyone, When it comes to the multiple facets of astronomy, my favorite one might just be talking to others about anything and everything astronomy related. I just find it a lot of fun to go in-depth for a random topic that someone was wondering about. Because of this, I think my work at Mesa... Read More

  • The End of Night

    Hey everyone, Recently I've been encountering a pretty big problem, that could potentially pose a threat to my project, that being summer. As many of you probably know, in winter the days are short and the nights are long, and in summer it's vice versa. This makes winter a perfect time to do astronomical observations,... Read More

  • People Photon Watching

    Hey everyone, how's it going? Nothing too exciting has happened this last week, so let me tell you a bit about the kinds of people I've seen throughout my project thus far (the title comes from how everything we see is because of photons going into our eyes). Firstly, as a part of my work... Read More

  • An Uneventful Week

    Hey everyone, This past week had a lot of issues that culminated together to basically erase any work for me do on my project this week. Firstly, since it was spring break the Southwest Student Research Consortium didn't meet, and I didn't meet with the Astronomy Association of Arizona. I already anticipated this happening, but... Read More

  • The Planetary Parade Panic

    Hey everyone, In this blog post, I'll be talking about my experience at the Gilbert Rotary Centennial Observatory during the planetary alignment on February 28th. To start with, no, a planetary alignment does not mean all the planets layer on top of each other like in the Hercules movie. It means that most, if not... Read More

  • The Race Track of the Sky

    In today's blog post, I'll be describing my experiences learning and observing the night sky directly. This part of astronomy has always been my weakest, as I could never remember what was what, and especially with constellations I just could not see the shapes and patterns. However, after spending a fair amount of time at... Read More

  • Protoproject: The First Step in the Formation of My Project

    Hey there everyone! For my second blog post, I wanted to give you all a little insight into two of my site placements (By the way, my title for this post comes from the first step in the formation of stars and planets, which are protostars and protoplanets respectively). Firstly, I’ve been working at the... Read More

  • The Big Bang: The Beginning of My Project

    BASIS Mesa, this is Joaquin Sanchez for 2025: A Space Odyssey.   I have always loved space, ever since I was only a few years old. I used to stare up into the night sky and wonder what was up there. Then throughout my schooling, I have pursued classes in astronomy and physics in order... Read More