I Was Just Looking Around The Rate My Professor For Caltech… Just For Fun…

Flame Nebula taken by Hubble Space Telescope

This nebula is an emission nebula— a star forming region in the Orion constellation. The nebula is filled with young stars; however, dense gas obscures the majority of the cluster.

In this cluster, it contains at least one O-type star that emits light, exciting the gas around it.

O-type stars are huge blue stars that are easily seen from Earth, even from farther distances. They have extremely high surface temperatures, causing them to lose energy at a much faster rate than other stars. These massive stars live for much smaller lifetimes, before resulting in supernova explosions and eventually forming a neutron star or black hole.

International Space Station transit of the Moon taken by Quinn Groessl on January 31 2023.

The ISS orbits the Earth at a typical velocity of 28000 km/h (very fast) and at a typical altitude of 400 km. Gravitational forces keep the ISS in constant freefall, but with the forward velocity of the ISS, the overall distance to Earth and velocity stays pretty much the same.

These transits are pretty infrequent. The angle of the moon from the orbital plane can vary over time, and any small changes in the ISS orbit can have major effects on its path. In the sky, they are both fairly small objects, leading to smaller probabilities as well.

An important factor that allows these events to occur is that the ISS is traveling much faster relative to our perspective on Earth compared to the moon. The ISS orbits the Earth around 16 times a day, while the moon takes around a month (27.3 days).

You can see the video of it at this link. It's incredible how precise astronomers have to be with how short of a timespan there is to record this.

it’s been a little over two years since i took a picture of ursa major while flying. it was a surreal experience and i lowkey want to travel again just so i can see that :)

really regret not getting my phone reflection out of it so if anyone has any tips to remove it i’d love to hear them!

Ever wonder how stars and planets form? New clues have been found in the protoplanetary system Herbig-Haro 30 by the James Webb Space Telescope, Hubble and the Earth-bound telescope ALMA. The observations show, that large dust grains are more concentrated into a central disk where they can form planets. The featured image from Webb shows many attributes of the HH-30 system. Jets of particles are being expelled vertically, shown in red, while a dark dust-rich disk is seen across the center, blocking the light from the star or stars still forming there. Blue-reflecting dust is seen in an arc above and below the central disk, although why a tail appears on the lower left is currently unknown. Studying how planets form in HH 30 can help astronomers better understand how planets in our own Solar System once formed, including the Earth.

Image Credit & Copyright: James Webb Space Telescope, ESA, NASA & CSA, R. Tazaki et al.

early morning study session! i’ve been at it for two hours and i’ve only gotten through 7 physics problems but that’s the fun part 😁

pretty sure i got one wrong bc one of my solutions is 1.3 x 10^65 hydrogen atoms….

GUESS WHO'S BACK!!

Not me.

I've finished writing my dissertation (no beta we die. we just die) but I still have my whole ass presentation to prepare.

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I'll defend this shit in two days.

55/100 days of productivity!

so, my chronic pain is back after a short break... which means I literally can't do the things I need to do... anyway let's get a good day in...

I accept myself exactly as I am in this moment. My worth is not determined by my productivity or my pain. I am enough, just as I am. Every small step I take today is a victory. Progress is progress, no matter how small. I am doing my best, and that is always enough.

to-do: 1.2.25

Morning yoga

mental health check _journal

Go to the mall

Writing session 1

Reading 2P _opt

Pain makes it hard to work effectively Falling behind creates anxiety Anxiety increases muscle tension Increased tension worsens pain Worse pain makes work even harder More falling behind... and the cycle continues And each loop of this cycle can make you feel more stuck and hopeless, which adds another layer of stress. It's not just in your head - this is a very real physiological and psychological pattern.

Every page you read is a step closer to your dreams

funny story… the timer on my quiz was at ~40 mins and i only had an hour for the quiz so I was super stressed— only 20 mins left with a third of the problems left.

turns out the timer was counting down 😭 so i rushed for literally no reason. i got 100% anyways! so no harm.

today is a study day (fortunately or regrettably depending on your perspective). this problem set is really cool and i actually like learning about circuits, which i didn’t expect.

- circuits problem set (88 mins)

- circuits quiz (39 mins)

- advanced circuits lecture

i’m REALLY behind in my course and i need to catch up by the time school starts again so i probably have another 4 hrs of work minimum. it’s finally feeling like crunch time lol

#1. NO MORE GUILT

Ever find yourself crashing out after a long day at school, sitting on your bed watching Netflix, and getting nothing done? It sounds horrible when I put it that way. Bed rotting, doom scrolling, whatever it is, it’s never a fun thing.

Here’s the thing though— it doesn’t have to feel that way.

There are two states that we can consider you to be in. Focus and Relaxation. The situation I described above is caught in between these two states. You want to be in a focus state, but you’re overwhelmed and stuck in your relaxation state. The opposite is also true. You try to get work done but catch yourself distracted, on your phone, instead. You are in a focus state, but you want to be in a relaxation state.

The number one change you can do to help your mental health is to choose a side.

When you are in your focus state, commit. You put your best effort in and keep your mind engaged in what you are working on. No distractions. This is going to help you get so much more work done in a shorter period of time. As you practice this, you are going to realize that when you are in your focus state, distractions are less enticing and you will be able to maintain it for longer.

Disclaimer: if you have to tell yourself to “lock in” you aren’t doing it right. Forcing yourself into a focus state is never going to work, it's just going to lead to that same, tiring, useless feeling.

To actually decompress and feel happier, you can’t have second thoughts in your relaxation. Set a timer if you have to, but you need to let yourself enjoy whatever you are doing. Imagine this: after a long hard day, you treat yourself by getting some popcorn, bundle yourself up in blankets, dim the lights, and get to watch the movie that’s been on your bucket list for the past week. So much better than what we started with, right? The cycle of guilt relaxation starts with wanting to decompress but feeling guilty the whole time. You don’t rest and aren’t happy because all you’ve been thinking about is “I have to get work done.” Instead, you get more tired, and you need to continue laying around or scrolling on your phone.

You don’t have to change your entire routine— just be more mindful about which state you are in and how you can take advantage of that.