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Feigelson disseminates research through outreach initiatives By Celena E. Kusch
This artist’s rendering shows the proposed Swift Gamma Ray Burst Explorer. Faculty from Penn State’s Eberly College of Science and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland are designing the satellite and charting its mission to study the newly discovered afterglow from gamma-ray bursts. The Swift Mission is one of five missions in NASA’s MIDEX program, an initiative designed to foster lower cost, rapidly developed scientific spacecraft. NASA will select two missions for flight and will fund large educational outreach projects to accompany the missions, public broadcasting programs, Web sites and expanded support for teacher workshops in the Appalachian region.	Using satellites in orbit to detect X-ray emissions from stars, Dr. Eric Feigelson, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State, and his colleagues have been at the forefront of research into the magnetic activity of young stars. They were the first to detect stars’ variable X-ray emissions, report X-ray-discovered weak-lined T-Tauri (WTT) stars, encounter a powerful WTT radio continuum flare, uncover VLBI-scale radio structure in active WTT stars, organize a multiwavelength campaign on a flaring T-Tauri star, detect X-rays from protostars and detect circularly polarized radio emission from a protostar.   Most recently, Eric Mamajek, a 1998 Penn State astronomy and astrophysics graduate, Warrick Lawson in Australia, and Feigelson announced the discovery of an unusual cluster of very young stars near Earth in the sky over the South Pole. The cluster is expected to be an important laboratory for understanding a number of mysteries concerning star formation and the early stages of stellar evolution.   With all the hours of work that Feigelson spends on research and teaching Penn State undergraduate and graduate students, it is often a challenge to integrate outreach activities as well. But Feigelson sees great benefit in the outcomes of outreach programs both for the communities those programs serve and for his own professional development.   He has been involved in other outreach activities related to his research endeavors. For the past several years, he has collaborated with Drs. G. Joseph Babu, Michael Akritas and James Rosenberger, professors in the Department of Statistics at Penn State, in assisting the astronomical community to improve its statistical interpretation of complex data. They have run two international conferences on “Statistical Challenges in Modern Astronomy,” authored a monograph titled Astrostatistics and operated the Statistical Consulting Center for Astronomy.   Now, Feigelson is joining Dr. John Nousek, professor of astronomy and astrophysics at Penn State, and other faculty in the department in a collaboration that has been selected by NASA to build the next MIDEX Explorer satellite called Swift Gamma Ray Burst Explorer. Scheduled to be launched in 2003, Swift is designed to quickly locate and study the mysterious gamma-ray bursts that are detected roughly once a day from random locations in the sky. The bursts are likely due to enormous explosions in distant galaxies, perhaps caused by colliding neutron stars or unusual supernova events.   Total cost of the Swift satellite is $163 million, with $26 million being spent at Penn State over the next seven years. The 30-member Penn State team is responsible for building and testing the X-ray and UV/optical telescopes, operating the satellite after launch from a control center to be located at Penn State and overseeing the education and public outreach program. Feigelson’s role in the proposed Swift mission is to lead the education and public outreach effort. More than $1 million of the $26-million portion of the grant will be devoted to the outreach initiative. Outreach activities will involve conducting teacher training workshops and producing innovative educational Web sites, curricular guides for high school teachers and instructional television programs for middle-school students. The television component will feature the award-winning program “What’s in the News” produced by WPSX-TV of Penn State Public Broadcasting.   “The Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics is making great strides in outreach,” Feigelson said. “I really enjoy teaching the teachers. The time is ripe for this kind of programming, and I am pleased to be able to be involved in meeting the outreach mission of the University.” Conferences provide another opportunity for scholars to distribute their research. Penn State professors Dr. G. Joseph Babu, professor of statistics, and Dr. Eric Feigelson, professor of astronomy and astrophysics, have completed the monograph Astrostatistics, published as part of the Interdisciplinary Studies series of Chapman and Hall. This volume is an outgrowth of their interdisciplinary work in organizing an international conference series on “Statistical Challenges in Modern Astronomy.” The monograph introduces astronomers and statisticians to each other’s disciplines and provides the first overview of astrostatistical issues. photo by Betty Stanford