Tori Wilson
Lantern Staff
Danny Mattern, a physics and astronomy professor at Butler, completed a yearlong project in collaboration with NASA/IPAC Teacher Archive Research Program also known as NNARP and other instructors around the country. The objective of the project was to find and identify new young stellar objects (YSOs).
Mattern has always been interested in astrology ever since he was a child. This interest helped develop his career path from a high school mathematics teacher to a college physics and astronomy instructor. This is his fourteenth year teaching at Butler and had taught 10 years at the high school level prior.
He found out about the project because of his participation in prior projects working with NASA. After completing the extensive application process Mattern was selected to participate in the NNARP project.
“The main idea of the project was to get educators that have not done a lot of active research used to that type of idea, to actually do our own research,” Mattern said. “So, we can discover something new, working with actual astronomers at Cal tech and NASA. The second part is taking what we learn about astronomy and research, and to then pass that on to our students.”
This opportunity allowed educators to actively participate and learn from research. Not only did the educators learn from this, but they are now able to share the discoveries and knowledge they gained with their students.
“We were looking at the Lagoon Nebula, an area of the sky close to the center of the Milky Way galaxy,” Mattern said. “Our objective was to find new YSOs. It was a big process, but we ended up discovering like 185 new YSOs that nobody had ever seen or classified before. Even our scientist, when we were first starting it, she was thinking that maybe if we got 10 to 20 stars that would be kind of cool.”
Not only did Mattern gain experience and knowledge from the experience, but he also gained new friends. The project could not be completed by one sole person and although the educators were from all over the country, through teamwork and video chatting, lifelong friendships were formed.
This most likely will not be the last project Mattern participates in; he is always on the hunt for his next scientific adventure.
“I always like to challenge myself and learn new things,” Mattern said.
