Hello,
Most of the time, I don't do experiments in a
laboratory like you would do in a high school biology or chemistry
class. Instead, I use a computer to analyze data from experiments that
are orbiting around the Earth, making measurements of plasma waves and
electrons in the Earth's magnetosphere. We have so much data to
analyze, that it can get to be a bit tedious at times, but it can also
be a lot of fun. When I was a graduate student, I had the opportunity
to travel to the Poker Flat Research Range near Fairbanks, Alaska where
we could look at the satellite data in real-time, as the Fast Auroral
Snapshot (FAST) satellite passed through the beautiful aurora we could
see in the sky overhead. Alaska winters are very cold, but it is also a
lot of fun to work at Poker Flat.
When I'm not analyzing
satellite data, I help test and calibrate the instruments that we place
on board sounding rockets and satellites that will be launched into
space. A few years ago, I tested electron detectors for a sounding
rocket that was launched in Alaska. Assembling the detectors was a bit
tricky, but turning the knobs and the big wheel to open and close the
valves on the vacuum chamber was fun. I also got to travel to NASA
Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to help with the integration of the
instruments onto the sounding rocket payload, which was quite exciting.
You can read more about the rocket and see some pictures here -
http://www.solarweek.org/...st_blog/default.aspx
Right
now, I am running simulations of an instrument that will be flown on a
future NASA mission called MMS-SMART, which stands for Magnetospheric
Multiscale Mission - Solving Magnetospheric Acceleration, Reconnection,
and Turbulence (try saying that one 5 times, fast!). I think it is
really cool that I contributed to something that will be flown in outer
space someday.
Kris