ASTR630 Assignments
TERPS 2016 Class Project
You are all invited (required!) to attend The
Exciting Results in Planetary Science (TERPS) Conference
to be held Dec. 8 in the Astronomy Department at the University of
Maryland, College Park. The Abstract Deadline is Thursday, October 6
by 11:59pm EDT. The conference will be attended by top scientists from
around the department (professors, researchers, graduate students) and
you will be presenting invited 10-minute oral presentations on your
recent research results. Start thinking about a Planetary topic that
you would like to investigate further and report on to your peers!
Your main resource should be a solid Icarus paper on your
topic (Icarus is the most prestigious scientific journal in Planetary
Sciences), and you should consult additional papers and the text for
backup material. In addition. you will be doing a mini-research
project of your own by re-deriving some of your chosen paper's results
and then pushing them further. For example, you might replot some
figures, derive some equations, run some simulations, or
analyze some observational data. You can search for scientific
research papers by subject or author with
the ADS
Astronomy and Astrophysics Abstract Service. Limit your search to
Icarus papers by typing "Icar." in the box under " Select
References From:". Your abstract should consist of the
reference for your source paper, and a 1-page summary of both its
content and how you intend to extend its results. This summary should
differ from a standard abstract by providing more context. Describe
in your own words the problem that the authors solve, why it is
important, and how you will extend it.
Your presentation will be strictly limited to 7 minutes with 3 minutes
for questions, so prepare accordingly. Typically you will have time to
show 5-6 slides. Pitch your talk to the level others in the class who
have not read your paper. Cole Miller's Ten
Commandments of Oral Presentations and Further
Hints on Giving Talks provide excellent advice!
Conference munchies will be provided!
Besides the abstract due in October, a PDF copy of your talk and a ~2
page description of your extension to the project are due near the end
of the semester. This description need not repeat material in your
abstract and PDF talk, but should rather should supplement those
writeups. Its purpose is to help me evaluate the scope of your
research projects and achievements. I will grade your projects 1/3 on
the quality and quantity of the research that you performed, 1/3 on
the design of your PDF slides and 1/3 on your actual oral
presentation. For some examples of interesting projects that students
have chosen in the past, check out
TERPS 2010,
TERPS 2012, and
TERPS 2014.
Do not panic - I am not expecting another
second year project! Reading and research for this class project
should take the equivalent amount of time as roughly 2 HW sets. So
read a paper of interest and extend it a little bit, where a little
bit is defined by the "2 HW sets" time limit.
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