tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-48773367725551259702024-03-13T05:45:40.553-07:00Space Weather @ RITMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.comBlogger31125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-58628074499582356402011-08-23T07:55:00.000-07:002011-08-23T07:55:36.862-07:00Monday (Week 8) The final Monday with 3 Days Left!!! We turned in the research paper today!!! That means that all we have to do now is prepare for and present our presentation on Thursday!!! So we worked on presentation notes and prepared for the inevitable presentation day!!!<br />
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Matt, SC Matt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-9986256519747329432011-08-23T07:50:00.000-07:002011-08-23T07:50:01.987-07:00Friday (Week 7) The Last Cookout with 4 Days Remaining!!! We enjoyed the hot dogs and hamburgs at the cookout today. We also played Volleyball, which was very fun. I won 2 out of the three games we played... Ed won all 3 however. Anyway we worked on the research paper and should be done with it on Monday!!!<div><br />
</div><div>Matt, SC </div>Matt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-46608505122859008242011-08-23T07:46:00.000-07:002011-08-23T07:46:16.653-07:00Thursday (Week 7) 5 Days remain!!! We finished up the rough draft of the research paper and sent it to Dr. Dube. We have to make some changes, but the majority of it is fine. We will finish that up on Friday and or Monday and then we will be completely done!!!<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-37446451851098000022011-08-18T12:40:00.000-07:002011-08-18T12:40:41.638-07:00Wednesday (Week 7) 6 Days Remain!!! Nothing really changed today. Although we did get our powerpoint approved by Joe!!!! Now all we have to do is finish our research paper which is coming along slowly, but it is getting done nonetheless.<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-18287169309230542982011-08-17T06:16:00.000-07:002011-08-17T06:16:11.343-07:00Tuesday (Week 7) 7 Days of the Internship Remain!!! The final countdown has reached 7!!! Time is running out, but so is the work!!! We are almost done with everything and should be completely finished by friday!!! Then its just a matter of memorizing/going over the powerpoint presentation...<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-7506217083380578832011-08-16T08:17:00.000-07:002011-08-16T08:17:49.917-07:00Monday (Week 7) Only 8 Days of Work Remain!!! It's crunch time now. We have 8 days to put the final touches on our powerpoint and finish about half a research paper. It will be boring and slow going, but we have quite a bit of time and should be done with plenty of time to spare... I hope...<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-12611063761274804302011-08-15T08:03:00.000-07:002011-08-15T08:03:01.327-07:00Thursday (Week 6) Melles Griot FTW!!! We had our third trip today!!! It was to another lens manufacturer, similar to RPO (which was our first trip), however they were very restrictive and did not show much of their facility. It was kinda a bummer, but the free subs after at Pellgrino's made up for it. Me and Halle are out tomorrow... I's on a leaders retreat for my church youth group and Halle is visiting Cornell. So have a good weekend all!!!<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-71053632313028287552011-08-15T07:56:00.000-07:002011-08-15T07:57:34.780-07:00Wednesday (Week 6) The paper continuesWe worked more on the paper... kinda uneventful today, but we did get almost the entire powerpoint done and we started to make progress on the research paper. We have a trip to <span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Melles Griot tomorrow. It is a lens manufacturer, if it is anything like the other trips it should be a good time.</span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Georgia, Utopia, 'Palatino Linotype', Palatino, serif; font-size: 14px; line-height: 21px;">Matt, SC</span>Matt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-39733634027631938252011-08-10T12:23:00.000-07:002011-08-10T12:23:04.502-07:00Tuesday (Week 6) It's All For Research The process of creating a scientific research paper is far more strict and difficult than I would have imagined. This will take a long time just to get a basic paper, then we will have to get extremely detailed and get it passed by Dr. Dube. It's quite the task, however the powerpoint is almost done and once it is we can focus solely on the research paper... Fun times.<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-4155131351820893492011-08-09T07:01:00.000-07:002011-08-09T07:01:19.115-07:00Monday (Week 6) The Presentation continued... Me and Halle worked on our presentation again today. We wanted to have Dr. Dube look it over, but he was not at work today. The presentation looks amazing, thanks to Halle's PowerPoint skills. PowerPoint must be her life calling because she is far to good at it. The presentation will be awesome its just a matter of putting in the time to make it happen.<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-83376654388246810992011-08-09T06:56:00.000-07:002011-08-09T06:56:27.748-07:00Friday (Week 5) The Beginnings of a Presentation + Xerox Today we went to Xerox to look at the production of the IGEN 4 printer as well as look at some of the research going on at Xerox in other fields. It was a cool trip and the presentations were interesting and eye opening because I had no idea Xerox was doing research in areas such as medical imaging and smoke detecting. After that field trip me and Halle worked on our PowerPoint presentation and that was the day.<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-66391481508901251962011-08-05T06:32:00.000-07:002011-08-05T06:32:39.209-07:00Thursday (Week 5) Mission Complete!!! My calculations for Mars checked out and now all me and Halle have to do is write up what we did and how we did it so that others can use our work in order to calculate the speed and direction of CME's. This will take some time, but our presentation is not until the 25th so it should not be too difficult to complete. :)<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-42692864333569024052011-08-04T06:15:00.000-07:002011-08-04T06:15:35.684-07:00Wednesday (Week 5) Almost there... I completed my Mars Equation today. Now I just have to plug in a solar storm's velocity and the solar wind and I can calculate the estimated time of arrival at Mars. Now I just have to reaffirm my equation and we are set and ready to start predicting the paths of solar storms!!! The hunt is on!!!<div><br />
</div><div>Matt, SC</div>Matt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-51476879383969879792011-08-03T06:15:00.000-07:002011-08-03T06:15:18.345-07:00Tuesday (Week 5) My work is so Excel-arating Got to love Excel... It is making my job easier by doing much of the math for me, but it is still incredibly boring. I found a website that gives the solar wind speeds and particle data for any given time... EPIC WIN!!! This makes life so much easier!!! Now all I have to do is plug away at excel to find the drag factors for the corresponding solar wind and then factor in the orbit of Mars. Once this is complete (probably another day or two) we will begin the final step... Looking for a CME that will hit Mars using live feeds from the Sun. Almost there!!! :)<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-6098089187532726952011-08-02T06:33:00.000-07:002011-08-02T06:33:02.853-07:00Monday (Week 5) Hi-Five!!! Week 5 is underway!!! Dr. D is out today on a trip, this is quite unfortunate because we really need to talk with him. The original plan was to use the GOES satellite and the auroras in order to have two points of reference and make the data far more accurate. However Goes is only 35000 km from Earth and is far too close considering the CME's are moving at about 600 km/sec, thats only a one minute gap... I need at least a 3-4 hour gap in order for it to be used as a second data point. :( The plan is now to split up and scour the web for another particle detecter that is at L1 ( orbital point where Earth's gravity and the Sun's gravity are equivalent ). Google here we come... Again...<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-44706556275565132432011-08-01T06:24:00.000-07:002011-08-01T06:24:06.129-07:00Friday (Week 4) TGIF!!! Ahhhh it's Friday at last!!! Dr. D is out today and Monday, however there is still work to be done. We have located a satellite (Poes) that can tell us when there are spikes is the ionosphere (AKA auroras). Now "all we have to do" is determine when they happen relative to when the flare hit the Goes satellite; with that we have two points of data for the same storm and therefore I can get far more exact with the drag factor. Then all we have to do is wait for a solar storm to head to Mars and this internship is done... it seems so close to end, but yet so far away...<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-81439935315511872072011-07-29T06:25:00.000-07:002011-07-29T06:25:07.407-07:00Thursday (Week 4) The Auroral Anomaly One would think that finding a satellite or weather center that kept track of the Earth's auroral activity would be a simple google search. Unfortunately this is not the case, all of the data of auroras from the satellites and weather stations is restricted and can not be viewed without some type of clearance, needless to say me and Halle had a difficult time finding the data we needed. We decided to talk with Dr. D (our professor) and see what he want us to do. We looked for an entire day to try and find the auroral data before going to him and he found the data in about 45 seconds... Sure enough it was on one of the sites we had already looked at, but had missed a tab at the top of the site that brings up the auroral data. Tomorrow our job will be to understand and apply this new data as a second reference point, the first being the Goes satellite at L1 (1.5 million miles away from Earth), this will reduce the margin of error of the drag factor to a value that will be acceptable and be able to be used.<div><br />
</div><div>Matt, SC</div><div><br />
</div>Matt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-14419879105475089472011-07-28T08:02:00.000-07:002011-07-28T08:02:08.079-07:00Wednesday (Week 4) The Drag Factor<div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"> The drag factor which allows for my math to account for the solar drag unfortunately can not account for the different drag speeds that can occur. The solar wind can be as slow as 300km/sec and as fast as 900km/sec this directly affects the solar drag. I tried using a speed of 600km/sec to try and split the difference but this left a 25% error in its wake (12.5% on each side). This meant that for a CME that could hit Mars my calculations for when it would arrive would be off by as much as a day to early or late. This will not work, I need to have a 5% error tops... The new plan is to use SOHO to determine when the solar storm hits it at L1 and then use the aurora's on Earth as a second point of reference thereby decreasing the percent error dramatically... All we need to do now is find something that keeps track of the auroras. Google here we come!!!</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;"><br />
</div><div style="margin-bottom: 0px; margin-left: 0px; margin-right: 0px; margin-top: 0px;">Matt, SC</div>Matt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-59933154366630715452011-07-28T07:57:00.000-07:002011-07-28T08:08:32.455-07:00Tuesday (Week 4) The Epic Triangulation Using the three satellites we were able to determine the angle of a solar storm and thereby calculate its projected travel path. This was a great accomplishment, but much more has to be done. We know know where it's headed, but not when its going to get there... The velocity math still has far to much error in it and quite a bit of work will have to be put into it in order to make it accurate enough...<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-71953427503878767442011-07-26T08:55:00.000-07:002011-07-26T08:55:50.820-07:00Monday (Week 4) Four!!! Today was a little out of the ordinary we went to Rochester Precision Optics today on a field trip of sorts. We left at 10 and left in style. We rode in a tour bus that was more like a limo. (Video of it on Halle's Blog, halleexploresspaceweather.blogspot.com) It was so comfortable, I honestly would have slept in it if their weren't 20 other people on the bus. Once there we got to look at the production of optic lenses... it was an ok tour, but nothing to write home about. After we went to Pizza Hut and ate a "metric ton of pizza" as Alex put it. He was not that far off either, as a group we demolished that buffet. After that we went back to work... Once there we were able to figure out the math involved to get the angle of projection now we just have to do it... ' . '<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-42782675334818468462011-07-25T06:15:00.000-07:002011-07-25T06:15:47.856-07:00Friday (Week 3) The Triangular Conundrum We gave up on the sun spot idea because we could not find anything that would help us triangulate the storms. The new idea is to use the three satellites and an orbital tracker on the STEREO site to tell us where the satellites are relative to Earth and the Sun and then I will use Kepler math to determine where Mars would be. We will then look at solar storms and find what quadrant the storms are in for each satellite and at what angle they are coming off the Sun at, thereby be able to determine the velocity of the storm and plot it's path and see if it would hit Mars. It's more work than I thought it was going to be by far, but it is the only way... :(<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-24449971583744863272011-07-22T06:36:00.000-07:002011-07-22T06:36:52.648-07:00Thursday (Week 3) We solved one problem and found another... We were able to find two satellites that could be used to look at solar storms from two distinct angles. With the use of SOHO in combination with these two satellites, both of which are STEREO satellites, we have the three points of view needed to triangulate a solar storm. However unlike SOHO that is in the same spot relative to Earth (follows the same orbit), the two STEREO satellites are constantly changing with respect to the Earth and do not follow the same orbit. Therefore the only way to use these is to find sun spots that don't move and use them as reference points to determine where the two satellites are in their orbit, thereby making it possible to triangulate the storm. FYI Sun spots that stay constant are not easy to find what-so-ever...<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-54619925581965925142011-07-22T06:21:00.000-07:002011-07-22T06:21:43.469-07:00Wednesday (Week 3) Houston we have a problem!!! The task of determining if solar storms will hit Mars is difficult to say the least. First off we have to find satellites that will give us the video of the sun's activity from a different angle than SOHO which is the one we used for Earth. We need to find two more in order to be able to triangulate the absolute location and angle of the storm. Once that is done we then must use my orbit math (Kepler's equations) to determine where mars is at that time. Once that is done we will use a graph and plot the projected path of the CME (coronal mass ejection) AKA solar storm, and see if it is in the vicinity of where Mars is if so we document it. If not we throw it away and try again. Sounds like fun!!! :(<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-8612561159671437242011-07-20T11:01:00.000-07:002011-07-20T11:03:40.000-07:00Tuesday (Week 3) A Leaping success!!! The leap frog algorithm along with countless hours of data collection and interpretation has led to a beautiful graph with my math only being off by about 4%. That is well within the acceptable range and will become even better once more data is entered into the graph and the leap frog algorithm. Our next task is to find storms that hit mars. This however is a problem for tomorrow and not today but, it will be a problem that will take some time to work out much like this one did. However this time we will not have the help of satellites to tell us if it definitely hits like we have for Earth... the safety net is gone and now the true experiment begins!!!!!<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-4877336772555125970.post-8684862347291897782011-07-19T11:23:00.000-07:002011-07-19T11:23:33.464-07:00Monday (week 3) Week 3 Commences!!! I had a fun weekend with Cam and saw the Harry Potter movie. It was really fun but.... that was this weekend and it is Monday now... Me and Halle have gone back through and made the data points more accurate and threw out those that we were not completely confident on. After all of this work my math still didn't add up... EPIC FROWN FACE!!!! Well we will work on the data again... for the third time tomorrow... Hopefully this time it will work correctly and not break the laws of physics and common sense, because I really don't want to go back through it again...<br />
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Matt, SCMatt Hendersonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/09148616419446957094noreply@blogger.com0