Working with Celestial Coordinates

It is a dream come true to work with celestial coordinates. 

All images are from Pixabay with Pixabay Content Licence, this globe with coordinates is by artist GDJ .

My first postdoc research work at the Institute of Astrophysics and Planetology (*planetology means something like science of planets or planetary science, versus Earth science is the study of our planet Earth) plunged me into the world of celestial coordinates – the identification how to mark the positions of objects, such as galaxies and quasars, on the sky and how to identify the separations of them. 

My institute is under the umbrella of the National Institute of Astrophysics which governs and combines the operations and research of more than ten astronomy-related research hotspots in Italy, often involving observatories scattered around the lovely terrain in this country which jets its fancy boot into the Mediterranean Sea and a country whose influence on the world spans centuries, including its contributions to the field of astronomy. It is amazing to be here, part of the lineage of Galileo and others before and after him who contributed to shaping the study of our cosmos.

But back to the celestial coordinates. Why am I so psyched about them?

First of all, because it is one of the most fundamental questions in astronomy, how to identify the position of an object on the sky (at this moment and as it moves), and how to identify the separation between the celestial bodies. Believe it or not, despite the human effort spanning millennia (*plural of millennium, which means a thousand years), we still don’t know precisely the positions of all the objects in the sky! And it is not so easy to do even for the objects relatively near us, e.g., in the Milky Way. That’s why the work of the spectacular Gaia mission is so important, as it provided as one of its main goals precision in positions and movements of billions of stars.

Working on a research project is fully meaningful for me if I can relate to it with my interest, curiosity, and dreams. If I am not passionate about something, it is harder to work, although other pressures sometimes play, such as financial stability and the necessity of a paycheck. But then you can do any job for money. So, it is a pleasure to do research in support of the MOONS instrument survey goals, an upcoming state-of-the-art instrument for the 8-meter telescope in Chile, a spectrograph of a thousand fibers which simultaneously can observe that many points on the sky and get more precise distance measurements (full details on its website vltmoons.org, VLT stands for the Very Large Telescope).

Also, as my position is a small contribution to astronomy, I love thinking about the bigger picture, because it sets a larger motivation for my work, a larger inspiration, and I love sharing my passion with others, which I am attempting to do here in this blog.

So yes, I have dreamed since childhood about the luminary objects on the skies, and their positions, including our Own Sun. Have you noticed that it is not always in the same spot? Have you noticed the same constellations above your head in the same seasons of the year?

This image is by Nini Kvaratskhelia, a photographer and a graphic designer from Tbilisi, Georgia, my birthplace actually (total coincidence and happenstance).

Besides reading books and wondering on my own, when I entered a prestigious high school with an emphasis on physics and math, Anania Shirakatsi lyceum in Yerevan, Armenia, I met my first astronomy teacher, Paron Oskanian (*in Armenian Paron means something like Sir in English or Monsieur in French, not a name in this case), who year after year would dive deep into various coordinate systems in astronomy.

However, celestial coordinates have something to do with geometry, a topic I did not do so well in middle school and always thought that I don’t have a good connection with geometry and always thought that I was not good at it from then on. I thought that because I was afraid that I was not good at abstracting shapes and especially 3D objects in my head, let alone doing calculations with them!

I needed more than a decade to believe in myself that I could do geometry and a wonderful Physics professor in my Master’s Degree of Physics at the San José State University (part of the California State University system), Dr. Patrick Hamill, to ignite a sense of wonder and to revere (*to venerate, to respect deeply) geometry, as one of the oldest and very interesting studies humans attempted. It was probably because Dr. Hamill is a writer and has a background in humanities and a talent as well, so he was able to relate to me the importance and wonderfulness of the subject, as well as explain it in and out in an understandable for me manner (since meeting him I have an appreciation of all scientists who also have a knack for writing and communications). He inspired me to not be afraid to close my eyes and imagine the 3D coordinate systems, the globe, to “stretch my neurons” and think hard about problems to solve them 😀

This image is by artist GDJ, Gordon Johnson from the USA.

Besides the interesting science history of geometry, and the secret clubs which would keep discoveries of that field in hushed tones, sharing only with few exclusive members, geometry is actually not as abstract as I once thought, meaning it is part of everyday life, and part of life. Geometry is everywhere.

Geometry is in art 😀 Have you tried to draw the perfect circle by hand? Or a perfect star?

This image is in artist Kandinsky’s style, I couldn’t figure out if it was a true digital reproduction or modified, but its source is here.

Geometry is in plants. Have you wondered about the symmetry in flowers?

This image of a lowering garlic plant head is by artist Marc Pascual.

Geometry is in life itself, all the way to the elemental structures, including atoms and our DNA molecules.

This image of Atomium, a giant sculpture of an enlarged iron crystal, in Brussels, Belgium is by Andrew Virnuls from the UK.

This image of an imaginary cat is by artist Hey-Juda from France.

I remember hearing Dr. Hamill share how he worked on problems related to celestial mechanics (no wonder he wrote textbooks on the topic!), and I was pondering that I would never be as smart and capable to do that, and admired how he could do it as a scientist – I mean so many things to account for to predict precisely the position of a planet, including that Earth is not exactly a globe, but is pear-shaped!

This image is by artist Gerd Altmann from Germany.

Still today, almost a decade later, even though I am in this postdoc position I have to fight Imposter Syndrome often, and build my confidence in the subject matter as an expert, even though I have a PhD! I use affirmations to combat the discouraging self-deprecating thoughts, such as ‘I am able, I can solve problems, I can figure it out, I can in peace work on these problems, I am capable, I have talents and am valuable to this research task, I am creative’ and I also pray for wisdom and success at my job for extra help from the divine heavens. 

This image is by artist Andri Tegar Mahardika from Yogyakarta, Indonesia.

I hope I have shared with you my inspiration for my work, and a bit of my vulnerabilities, just to highlight that you can have a mixture of feelings and come from any walk of life, and still be a scientist who studies a hard problem. You don’t have to know all the answers. You can wonder and attempt a solution, and your research path, regardless of your background, can lead to amazing discoveries, even though that path may be full of challenges and failures. Don’t give up! And if you are interested, I offer you a friendly welcome to come and study geometry, or any other aspect of science.

This image of a girl on a tree is by artist Pheladi Shui from Hoedspruit in South Africa.

Some people may say that oh, you are not part of the collaboration, you just have a one-year contract with an  uncertain future, you are not doing that much as you are just working on a project-based work, not independent research, but I say that all this aside, because I am interested in the topic first and for all and see the significance of it, I am excited and am grateful to have that opportunity to be part of (maybe infinitesimal but still present) the endeavor to look and understand the skies with the next generation of instrumentation, to put my little drop into the ocean of discoveries provided by the unprecedented data and amazing surveys envisaged with MOONS instrument.

And yes, I may not be the smartest and the most capable person, an Einstein mind, but that does not matter. I am who I am and I am excited to bring my talents and capabilities, my creativity to the tasks and I am motivated to do my best. In the past, as a young person, I stepped aside from opportunities because I was not feeling confident, and I regret that. Now, despite my fears or in spite of unknowns, if I am interested in something, I try to pursue it, and I can do my best. If it is not good enough and there are better people than I to crack those problems, or dare-I-say capable AIs, I am happy for them and am excited to learn those new discoveries. But I do also wish to try and attempt my hand and then I can at least say that I tried my best. The rest is up to God.

Geometry, while present all around us, is the construct of the human mind. Plants did not need to learn geometry in school to produce symmetrical flowers, nor the molecules in water needed a class to arrange themselves into H**2**0. Since I have a mind, I can use my neurons and think, just like any other human being. While I may not know the answer, I can try and come up with solutions and then see where they are deficient and continue on improving and moving forward. 

Science nowadays is a collaborative effort – see the MOONS consortium, how many people and institutes are involved! We all put our brains together to solve and move forward in discovering space! So, I, as a scientist can present my findings and attempts to other scientists and get feedback, look at previous works to glean from the wisdom of people who attempted similar problems before me, and if I find a part I am not familiar with, I can seek collaborations with experts in that area, or go through a workshop to hone in a skill. 

I am super excited about the path forward and about what the future can bring! I hope I imparted to you some practical ways to overcome self-doubt in geometry / math / science and to be motivated to pursue your interests in these topics.

– Maria, aka your astronomer who moved from Helsinki to Rome in pursuit of a postdoc

P.S. I often close my eyes and imagine who I am standing on this giant globe of our planet, spinning around the Sun, feeling the speed in my imagination, then levitate in my mind out of the Earth to see the Milky Way’s spirals, full of dust in parts and spectacular stars, also moving, and then go even further, to experience in my mind the motions and lives of galaxies, as they journey in the mysterious cosmic environments. I use it also to imagine the processes folk model in practice, to see if the models fit into how I understand the galaxies work, or if the reasoning makes sense. Try it!

The image below is by Gerd Altmann, an artist from Freiburg, Germany.

Dr. Maria Babakhanyan Stone

Postdoctoral fellow

Institute for Space Astrophysics and Planetology 

of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (IAPS – INAF)

Visiting researcher

FINCA, University of Turku, Finland

 

astronomygo.com