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Astronomy department’s Jason Young reaches for the stars with student-aided summer research BY REBECCA GAGNON ’23 FEATURES EDITOR
Although another year at Mount Holyoke has come to an end, academic life is still present on campus as summer research is now in full swing. Professors across the College, such as in the astronomy department, are beginning projects in their fields of study and have students assisting them for experience. Jason Young, a visiting lecturer from the astronomy and physics department, has remained on campus since the end of the semester to conduct summer research. “There’s actually a couple of different lines of research I’m working on,” Young began. “I’m … working with a professor up at [University of Massachusetts Amherst] … using the Very Large Array Radio Telescope down in New Mexico to look for hydrogen gas in some of [the] galaxies [being studied], and [we’re] looking for signs that they might be interacting with some of their neighboring galaxies.” Young continued, “Then on top of that, I’ve got some collaborators over in Spain and the Netherlands, and we’re looking for a different kind of gas, carbon monoxide, in a few other galaxies which are often linked to star formation.” Young explained that there is a third project he hopes to work on with the Hubble Telescope, but it depends on his proposal being approved. “I’m also hoping that Hubble doesn’t break,” he added. As reported by NASA, the Hubble Space Telescope’s payload computer stopped working on June 13, 2021, resulting in a halt in the collection of data. However, the telescope itself and the scientific instruments are in good condition, and NASA is working to diagnose the problem. Young said the entire astronomy community is waiting in anticipation for updates on the tele-
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scope. In addition to these lines of work, Young has taken on two students, Lindsey Hands ’22, a double major in physics and astronomy, and MJ Khan ’24, a physics major, to assist with more of the research for the summer. “The research I’m doing is, in general, I’m trying to find the chemical compositions of low surface brightness galaxies, which are galaxies that are really massive and big, but they don’t have a lot of stars so they’re not very bright,” Hands described. “We’re trying to find out, through the chemical composition, what could be causing the lack of star formation.” Young also noted that the galaxies Hands is studying have unusual properties because they appear to have more chemical enrichment on the edges of the galaxy than in the center. Both Young and Hands hope this research can evolve into a senior thesis. Khan is looking at the same type of galaxies as Hands, but with a more structural approach. Young assigns Khan individual galaxies to study by looking at their infrared images. She then breaks down the galaxies into their individual parts. “The galaxies that we’re looking at have a lot of hydrogen gas, but they’re not really forming stars at a very high rate, and so the question that we’re asking is, ‘why not?’” Young specified. “You’ve got all the stuff, so why aren’t you doing anything with it? And so all these different research projects are kind of looking at the same problem from different angles.” The typical length of summer research depends on the professor, the students and whether the students have any funding supporting them as they work on their projects. Khan is working all summer while remaining on campus. Hands, however, received a Space Grant funded by NASA for her summer
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Photo courtesy of Jason Young Lindsey Hands ’22 and MJ Khan ’24 assist Professor Jason Young in researching galactic star formation.
College to require employee vaccinations for fall 2021 term BY ELLA WHITE ’22 NEWS EDITOR
Mount Holyoke College will require employees to be vaccinated against COVID-19 in fall 2021. The College announced this decision in a statement posted to the Mount Holyoke website on June 30, two months after its announcement that all students will be required to be vaccinated. The College will permit exemptions to the vaccination requirement based on religious or health grounds. The announcement asked that “we avoid making assumptions about any individual and their vaccination status; that we continue to extend the grace, understanding, empathy and support that are hallmarks of the Mount Holyoke community; and that we approach all interactions respectfully and with compassion as we make this transition.”
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The College said its decision to require vaccinations “derives from the unambiguous advice of national, state and local public health and medical experts that achieving as near to universal vaccination as possible is essential if we are to keep our community safe.” The decision, according to the statement, reflects the positions of the “vast majority of Mount Holyoke employees” regarding vaccination requirements. Additionally, the College announced an upcoming program to “facilitate interactions on campus through visible markers of each person’s comfort level with such interactions/physical distancing.” While the College has not released guidelines or further details, the plan will be implemented in the fall 2021 semester and be optional to students and faculty. Employees’ documentation of full vaccinations are due by August 13.
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