A few weeks ago, Sukrit Ranjan wrote an excellent Astrobite discussing an exciting new paper from Scott Tremaine and Tomer Yavetz, provocatively titled Why do Earth satellites stay up? The authors examined the stability of satellite orbits, a surprisingly complex problem when you include gravitational perturbations from other bodies and the tidal forces contributed by the Earth’s oblateness. You can read Sukrit’s Astrobite for more details.
Sukrit’s piece, like almost all Astrobites, was based purely on the science. It was an objective summary of the paper that discussed their work in the broader context of research in astronomy and physics.
That’s why it was so exciting for all of us at Astrobites to learn more about the story behind the research in a recent article in the Daily Princetonian. It turns out that Tomer is a Princeton undergraduate, who worked on this paper as part of a junior thesis project with advisor Scott Tremaine (Institute for Advanced Studies). Princetonian reporter Corinne Lowe interviewed Tomer to learn more about his research experience, and called Sukrit to get his perspective on the importance of the work.
Congratulations to Tomer and Scott, for their innovative work and also for demonstrating the impact that can be achieved by undergraduate researchers!
