I Did It. I Fucking Did It. It’s Over!!!!

regaining momentum ♡

ps: i received roses!

Messier 66 taken by Hubble Space Telescope on January 28 2021

In this picture, it showcases the star forming regions of the galaxies, which can be seen in red. Star forming regions are vulnerable to disturbances, which can cause the gas in the interstellar medium to collapse into dense clumps of material. These are called protostars.

During the formation of these protostars, gravitational energy is converted into thermal energy. If there is enough thermal energy produced, it is enough to spark nuclear fusion. The star then joins the main sequence.

Due to nature of the star forming regions, it often yields the creation of star clusters, since many stars are being created in close proximity. Large stars especially can emit radiation and produce stellar winds, which pushes the star away from these regions.

Thor's Helmet taken by Chris DeCosta and Martin Pugh on February 28 2019

NGC 2359, also referred to as Thor's Helmet, is an emission nebula in the constellation Canis Major. At the heart of this nebula is a Wolf-Rayet star WR7, which is in this phase briefly before a supernova occurs.

The bubble appearance of this nebula is due to the strong stellar winds coming from WR7. These winds contribute to forming a complex structure, with a huge mass of ionized material. The high energy radiation coming from the star ionizes hydrogen to produce red light and doubly ionizes oxygen to produce blue light.

The gas absorbs and then reemits this light, leading to the name of "emission nebula".

studying outside ✨ but then getting nothing done bc the weathers nice…. still have to finish up my notes for astrophysics and then go through the lectures for e&m

Friday, 21st March 2025

Moving onto my stellar remnants module today, with an appropriate soundtrack :)

🎵The Sky Moves Sideways Album - Porcupine Tree

NGC 2403 taken by John C. Yu on January 30 2024

NGC 2403 is a intermediate spiral galaxy. There are typically two types of spiral galaxies: barred and regular spirals. This galaxy falls between the two, denoted as SAB.

The bar in spiral galaxies forms due to gravitational instability. However, this bar can help with star formation as it funnels material to the center of the galaxy.

Interactions with neighboring galaxies or having greater instability can lead to a greater bar shape in the galaxy. However, dark matter halos also play a big role in having the opposite effect, often preventing the bar from forming. These combined factors lead to the median shape of this galaxy.

Intermediate spiral galaxies can eventually evolve into either regular spiral galaxies or barred spiral galaxies, but we won't be there to see the final form of NGC 2403.

study tip: eat chocolate 🍫 (unless you’re allergic please don’t die)

i couldn’t sleep last night and ended up falling asleep at 5 am. waking up this morning was really difficult and all my muscles were feeling achy.

i didn’t think I would get anything done, but then i had half a chocolate bar…

- rc circuits problem set

- rc circuits quiz

- electric circuits unit test

now i’m spending the evening working on python and then scrolling on pinterest 👀

typically, sweeter snacks are frowned upon because of the high sugar content which can cause you to crash and make it difficult to maintain focus.

however, chocolate also contains cacao. cacao improves focus and memory, and also relieves stress.

before school, i’ve started adding cacao nibs to yogurt, oatmeal, and smoothies. it’s a great way to boost your mind in an easy and delicious way :)

happy new year! 🎉🎉🎉

Sirius A and B taken on 13th December 2005 by Hubble Space Telescope

Sirius A is well known for being the brightest star in the night sky and a part of the constellation Canis Major. However, its binary partner, Sirius B was only discovered in 1862.

Ever since the creation of Newton’s law of universal gravitation, star mechanics became not only descriptive, but also predictive. Sirius A’s path across the night sky was unexpected. It wasn’t a straight line, but rather oscillated across its path. This caused many scientists to suspect that Sirius A had a binary partner.

Sirius B was first observed by Alvan Clark, who was testing a new telescope at the time. This was later on confirmed by other telescopes.

Sirius B is a white dwarf, while Sirius A is a main sequence star, meaning it is much larger and much brighter. 1000x brighter than Sirius B, in fact.

In the photo, Sirius A is in the center (although there are some effects due to the instruments) and Sirius B can be seen in the lower left.

@goredchanel sure! Planning, practice, and time management are probably the most important things.

We didn't really come in with a plan and had to spend a lot of time figuring out what we were going to do, how each of the pieces fit together, and how to get the code working across files. I was also not familiar with HTML, CSS, or JavaScript, and since we decided on building a website... it took a long time to learn how anything even worked.

Also practicing I think is just overall helpful. Even if it's just smaller projects, it helps build up to making that bigger hack. Making small apps/games/websites, even if they aren’t that useful can help keep your skills up to date. And then when the hackathon comes along, you can do a more practical project. For learning python and java from the very beginning I like codingbat, but if you’re already familiar, it might be too slow.

Time management is also important to keep track of. We didn't have this issue, but I think it was pretty common in the groups.

Devpost has a "Beginner-Friendly" tag for more hackathons, so those are hopefully less intimidating. Anyways, I hope that helps 😊

my first 24 hour hackathon!

NEVER AGAIN in my life am I building a website from scratch 😭 it’s torture. if only my dumb self knew that frameworks existed…

my first 24 hour hackathon!

NEVER AGAIN in my life am I building a website from scratch 😭 it’s torture. if only my dumb self knew that frameworks existed…