BEST STUDIES EVOLVING GALAXIES AND

THE HISTORY OF HUMAN ASTRONOMICAL THOUGHT

Jason Best is one of two MFFP fellows who returned to IU this summer as alumni, as well as former undergraduate participants in the Minority Achievers Program and the Honors Program. He taught A100, an introductory course on the solar system targeted towards non-majors, for the Department of Astronomy, the program in which he majored eight years ago.  Of his experience outside the classroom, he said that the graduate students have enhanced his experience here this summer: “They are very outgoing, and supportive of the program.  The faculty have all been very friendly, very interested in my work, which I greatly appreciate.”

He described his dissertation as being based on “the large scale distribution of galaxies,” as well as on how they form and evolve. “There are many different types of galaxies. I was actually able to do both the distribution and the evolution questions with a particular method based on fractals,” Best said, a fractal method which he has altered from traditional models. Best pointed out that this type of work demands a large data set, “thousands upon thousands of galaxies.”  Various research groups throughout the world create galaxy catalogues, or cluster catalogues, a collection of objects with specific properties collected over months, observed in all parts of the sky, often based on distance, brightness, or size. Acquisition of such data involves multiple collaborations, and is made available to scholars for use in analysis.  It is this kind of public data on which Best based his dissertation research.

His current research involves several projects.  One is in the large-scale structure, using the same fractal technique, but looking at catalogues with more data.  “We’re always waiting for more and more data.  We’re censored, in the sense that if the only thing I can see in the world is between my hands, then I’m going to say the world looks a certain way;” he said, adding that data accumulation represents an expanding field of material, observed at greater and greater distances.  “Because of that, I’m able to take my technique and really push it studying the universe.”  Best also uses virtual reality to create models of galaxies via computer language, then has the computer translate those codes into three dimensions.  His wife, Sarah Maene, a graduate alumnus from Penn State University’s Astronomy Department like her husband, is an Applications Systems Analyst, and manages the computer technology representations of his research. Best is also currently involved with the Institute for Environmental Studies at Shepherd College in West Virginia, where he teaches for the Astronomy Department in a tenure track position.  Space science has recently been added to the Institute’s rubric, with Best heading this group. When not working on these projects, he pursues his interests in historical and archeological astronomy, researching the ways, historically, humans have interpreted the universe.