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Looking Like an Alien!

Image credit: NASA/JPL/University of Arizona
Paul Dalba, an astronomy student at BU, has been using MGHPCC to answer the question: “What would a distant alien civilization learn if they tried to study Saturn with the same methods we currently apply to exoplanets?”

What would Saturn, the beautiful ringed planet, look like to an alien species on a distant planet? This question is of particular interest to astronomers who study planets that exist far beyond our solar system or “exoplanets.” Although we have not yet discovered an exoplanet with properties exactly matching Saturn’s, the answer to this question holds important consequences for future studies of giant exoplanets. This suggests that before we go looking at planets elsewhere in the Galaxy, perhaps first we should take a closer look at those in our own solar system.

Paul Dalba
Graduate student in the PhD program in the Astronomy Department at Boston University.

Research projects

Foldit
Dusty With a Chance of Star Formation
Checking the Medicine Cabinet to Interrupt COVID-19 at the Molecular Level
Not Too Hot, Not Too Cold But Still, Is It Just Right?​
Smashing Discoveries​
Microbiome Pattern Hunting
Modeling the Air we Breathe
Exploring Phytoplankton Diversity
The Computer Will See You Now
Computing the Toll of Trapped Diamondback Terrapins
Edging Towards a Greener Future
Physics-driven Drug Discovery
Modeling Plasma-Surface Interactions
Sensing Subduction Zones
Neural Networks & Earthquakes
Small Stars, Smaller Planets, Big Computing
Data Visualization using Climate Reanalyzer
Getting to Grips with Glassy Materials
Modeling Molecular Engines
Forest Mapping: When the Budworms come to Dinner
Exploring Thermoelectric Behavior at the Nanoscale
The Trickiness of Talking to Computers
A Genomic Take on Geobiology
From Grass to Gas
Teaching Computers to Identify Odors
From Games to Brains
The Trouble with Turbulence
A New Twist
A Little Bit of This… A Little Bit of That..
Looking Like an Alien!
Locking Up Computing
Modeling Supernovae
Sound Solution
Lessons in a Virtual Test Tube​
Crack Computing
Automated Real-time Medical Imaging Analysis
Towards a Smarter Greener Grid
Heading Off Head Blight
Organic Light-Harvesting Antennae
Art and AI
Excited by Photons
Tapping into an Ocean of Data
Computing Global Change
Star Power
Engineering the Human Microbiome
Computing Social Capital
Computers Diagnosing Disease
All Research Projects

Collaborative projects

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Outreach & Education Projects

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