The Night Sky Grace Luu

As much as I loved the stars as a child, I was rarely given the opportunity to be outside at night. Since the annual Christmas reunion at my aunt’s house culminated after 10 PM however, I was able to spend some time on those nights staring into the night sky. Why are some stars brighter than others? Why do stars seem like they can twinkle? Why is the sky dark at night? Those nights never failed to fill me with curiosity.

Flash forward five years later and my biopsychology professor had made a tangential remark about how neurons look a lot like galaxy networks, driving me to explore the topic of astronomy once again. I would often stay two hours after class, flipping through the years’ worth of the Astronomy magazine series in the library. Although there was much that I did not understand, I was amazed by the images of distant nebulae, the concept of quantum superposition in time travel and just how much remains unknown. I was determined to add astronomy to my class schedule that fall. Yet, I had to wait until the following fall semester before I could find an open section of astronomy.

In class, I never fail to feel amazed by every lecture we have, whether it is on the solar system, stellar evolution, or the big bang theory. At...