Hi! My name is Meara and I am a part of the NMSU Astro 2 program. Today began slightly later than the first few days, at 7:30 a.m., and we had just enough time to get ready before breakfast and our first lecture at nine. We enjoyed a slightly cooler walk toward the cafeteria, a result of last night’s rain. Spherical trigonometry was fascinating, especially with the addition of an inflated ball to represent problems in 3D. Our second lecture built upon previous ideas to explore various time concepts such as Local Sidereal Time(LST) and Julian Days (JD). During one of our breaks my roommate discovered sharpie drawings on her hand, but couldn’t remember placing them there… We stayed in the classroom for a bit after the lecture concluded to work on the Vector pset due tonight, but eventually had to pack up and head back to the dorms for the daily fancy-dinner change. The time between lecture two and dinner is pretty relaxing, and can be spent taking a quick power nap, calling parents, or working on the pset or problem of the day. Today’s dinner menu wasn’t the best meal I’ve had at NMSU, but the conversation was highly enjoyable as always. The topics discussed ranged from ice cream trucks at softball games to the 1750 act of Parliament in which England finally accepted the Gregorian Calendar. After a second brief change, we braved the heat and returned to the classroom, where we completed the Vector pset, and where I am now writing this blog. We’re hoping to sleep earlier tonight after some python work. Although demanding, so far our SSP experience has been rewarding, and we are looking forward to even more challenging concepts and asteroid observations!
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