Jojo’s JRPS Project

Ever since sixth grade when I built my very first telescope, I knew that astronomy was something that I would want to pursue. This year, I focused on questions like how the universe began and how it has changed over time. More specifically, I looked at how scientists study very old and faint radiation from the beginning of the universe. My research question became: How do scientists separate the CMB from stronger signals and distortions to study the early universe, and what are the current limits of those methods? For my final project, I wanted to conduct a hands-on radio telescope project. Since observing the CMB requires massive, costly telescopes, I used NASA’s JOVE radio telescope to observe the sun. At first, the data I collected looked very weak and messy which led to it being difficult to understand, but this actually connected well to my research topic. Eventually, I was able to collect a much clearer signal that appeared to show a solar flare, which was a strong example of what good data can look like after struggling with messy results. Even though the sun and the CMB are very different subjects, the process helped me understand one of the main ideas from my research: it is crucial to be careful when interpreting signals from space. In addition to using NASA’s JOVE, I created a setup guide for the software included in the process, accessible through a digital PDF.