NSF Funding Implications
Several times a year I travel with my advisor, Dr. John Thorstensen, to the Michigan Dartmouth MIT (MDM) Observatory outside of Tucson, AZ, where we study a specific type of binary star system called a cataclysmic variable (CV). These star systems are similar to our solar system, but instead have two stars, one orbiting around the other like the Earth around the Sun. The orbiting star is similar to the Sun, but considerably less massive (meaning it has less matter).
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