So, what’s it like researching in the PVL!?

This week Ariella reflects on her time spent with the lab over the summer as a TEPS fellow. Above, she is pictured at the Lassonde Undergraduate Research Conference alongside Noah Stanton, another of our Summer Researchers. We wish her well as she enters into her final year of her undergraduate career and sets her sights on what lies beyond!

By Ariella Sapers

Over the last 4-5 months I’ve spent my time being an undergraduate researcher for the Planetary Volatiles Laboratory at York University, which was a huge change to my previous research experience.

I’m used to staring at stars in my previous research projects - but now, it was all about Mars! For starters, I did not realize the amount of incredible Mars research that is done in this lab ... and worldwide. I was very naive before I started - as my head had always been stuck in astrophysics research – so I didn’t realize the cool research that’s conducted in the Planetary Sciences! Before this, the only experience I had was a Planets and Planetary Systems course taught at York University by Dr. John Moores, which is what intrigued me in the first place.

This research experience didn’t just let me work in a cool lab ... I got to attend two conferences throughout the summer. The first was the TEPS conference. This conference was the Technologies for (Exo) Planetary Sciences which allowed all award holders to come for a three-day conference. TEPS is an NSERC CREATE Program that allows undergrads, masters, PHD and Post Docs to be trainees. I was lucky enough to have received one of these awards which officially made me a TEPS Trainee! This meant I got to attend the TEPS conference and meet a lot of Planetary Scientists. The vast amount of research being conducted on Mars, exoplanets and the moon is incredible. It also showed me what masters students and PhD students are working on - since I’m close to graduating, it was nice to see the endeavours of graduate students.  

The second conference I got to attend was the Lassonde Undergraduate Research Conference for all award holders that summer. On top of my TEPS award - I maintained a RAY ( Research at York) position that allowed me to go to this conference to present my research. I was very pleased to not only be able to give a poster there - but to win People’s Choice for best poster! These Mars craters really had people intrigued. This was also a great achievement for me since at my first conference (TEPS) I also had a poster presentation but.... my poster had paper attached to the front to show new / better results .... a huge success for having better results but that was a learning experience.

What did I spend months working on and presenting on anyways? Well, I spent my summer working on the “Illumination of Martian Craters to Support Space Exploration” project. This project was all about the ice inside craters on Mars - specifically, Gale, Louth and Korolev and how the dramatic change of Mars’ obliquity impacts it. For my research in particular, I worked alongside Dr. John Moores' PhD student, Jake Kloos. He originally created the illumination code for the lunar poles, but it was my job to alter this code for the Martian surface. Now, how you ask?

MATLAB.

This language was foreign to me! I had coded a bit in python previously when I tried my hand at coding galaxies and getting them to collide .... but MATLAB?? It was definitely a learning curve. I spent many hours watching tutorials on how to do the simplest commands and to this day - I’m still not great. But, it taught me a lot about research. I didn’t realize until I started this research just how much coding is involved in research projects. For the first couple weeks, I was trying my best to understand how to import a digital elevation model ( DEM ) of the Martian surface and crop it to the dimensions of the crater. Something I can now do in 10 minutes – but it didn’t come without practice! Throughout the summer I was able to hone my MATLAB skills and understand the language more and more with each foreign task I had to do! This didn’t come without constantly asking questions / getting help from some of the graduate students in the PVL, which I am very grateful for.

So overall, what’s it like researching in the PVL?

It’s an incredible experience. The group members are all so helpful and knowledgeable. I got to learn so much about the Mars research being conducted - research I wouldn’t even know about if it wasn’t for the PVL. I got to attend conferences & meet the people behind the Planetary Science discoveries today. It forced me to SOMEHOW love MATLAB - it’s more of a love / hate relationship if I’m being honest. But it gave me an opportunity to work in a real lab and let me see what it would be like to be a grad student. Now that my term has ended with the lab, I am (somewhat) ready to get back to my physics classes. This won’t be without constantly having one of my browsers open to Planetary Science news …. And maybe some “how-to”’s for MATLAB. 

Thank you to everyone at the PVL who made this summer fun and knowledgeable for me! I can’t wait to one day return to the Planetary Science world … maybe try to make Pluto a planet again?