Decoding the universe
UW astronomy undergrads use cutting-edge coding skills to help scientists make the most of discoveries from a revolutionary new telescope.
Left to right: Students Madison R., Max F., Guinevere B., Danbi K., and Professor Mario Jurić in the UW Planetarium.
Danbi Kim is drawn to the vastness of space: its billions of galaxies and trillions of stars, countless planets and moons, and swirling clouds of cosmic dust and gas. Looking at the night sky puts everything on Earth into perspective for Kim, ’26, a University of Washington undergraduate studying astronomy and physics. “We’re tiny beings living on a tiny rock floating in space,” Kim says. “I think that’s why I started liking space.”
But when Kim first began college, they avoided math and science classes, believing those subjects would be too difficult. A basic astronomy course changed their outlook. The class was hard work, but they loved it — and suddenly saw a whole new path.
“I just felt like I needed to do astronomy for the rest of my life,” says Kim, who was studying the visual arts at a different college at the time. Friends and family were skeptical when Kim shifted gears to study physics, eventually transferring to the UW to pursue an astronomy degree. Kim says, “I now know that I wasn’t bad at STEM — I just needed to find the right place.”
The Vera C. Rubin Observatory, in northern Chile, will begin a comprehensive 10-year survey of the night sky in 2025.
Seen here in the UW Planetarium, these undergrads chose the UW because of its strong astronomy program.
In addition to providing a supportive community and strong academic foundation, the UW is preparing astronomy undergraduates like Kim for careers in and beyond the field by offering the kinds of hands-on opportunities that in many places are reserved for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. Kim found one such opportunity in a Python for Astronomy class taught by Professor Mario Jurić, who also leads the UW’s Institute for Data Intensive Research in Astrophysics and Cosmology (DiRAC).
The dozen undergrads in the 300-level class used Python, a computer programming language, to tackle questions that Jurić and his DiRAC colleagues are also looking to answer, such as whether there’s a ninth planet lurking in our solar system (apologies to Pluto) or how we can protect ourselves from near-Earth asteroids. “Usually graduate students get to do the most interesting things,” Jurić says. “But we need to educate the generation that’s going to be here five years from now.” To that end, the students’ class projects led to relevant research findings that will help data astronomers like Jurić when a revolutionary new telescope comes online in 2025 — and changes astronomy as we know it.
Downloading the night sky
Perched on a mountaintop in northern Chile, the Vera C. Rubin Observatory’s telescope will produce the most comprehensive survey of the night sky, the 10-year Legacy Survey of Space and Time (LSST). The UW was one of the founding members of this ambitious undertaking and will play a key role in making sense of the anticipated discoveries. “Rubin will be our Google of the sky,” explains Jurić. DiRAC, established in 2017, will help analyze the astronomical amount of data expected from the LSST. “We’re building this one machine that’s going to download the entire sky and put it out there for the entire world.”
The Simonyi Survey Telescope features a unique three-mirror design that will give it a broad view of the night sky.
Every night, the Rubin’s Simonyi Survey Telescope will capture millions of changes in stars and other objects. This database of the night sky will require algorithms to sift through the billions of bits of information, so DiRAC scientists and engineers are already crafting the software. And that’s where the future astronomers in Jurić’s class come in.
The twelve undergrads were divided into two groups, each with an exciting mission that would give them a glimpse into the future. By the end of the quarter, could they use their coding skills to predict whether the Rubin’s state-of-the-art telescope would be able to discover a ninth planet in our solar system or prevent an asteroid from colliding into Earth? Those are just two ways in which the Rubin’s discoveries could be truly revolutionary — and why DiRAC scientists are eager for the telescope to finally come alive next year.
Hear from students about how their hands-on research is preparing them for the future.
Launching future careers
By using code to make sense of astronomical data, the students, Jurić says, are learning “how to use the data from this telescope by making predictions and understanding what the telescope is going to do.” This work is valuable, he notes, to both his DiRAC colleagues and the students’ future careers.
If your passion is astronomy, we’ll teach you the skills needed to push the frontiers of science with flagships like Rubin. But […] those same skills will make you competitive in other data-intensive industries as well.”
“Learning to code is like learning a foreign language,” explains Kim. “We learn a language to talk to the computer, so we can look at data and try to make conclusions.” For the former graphic arts student, visualizing the data to show the orbits of near-Earth objects was especially rewarding, because it combined math, physics and creativity.
Today’s astronomy is largely a high-tech science, Jurić says, so students need to gain skills in computer science and programming along with the bread-and-butter math and physics curriculum. The UW is the ideal place to lead the charge, he points out, because of its strong astronomy program and deep connections to Seattle’s tech community.
“If your passion is astronomy, we’ll teach you the skills needed to push the frontiers of science with flagships like Rubin,” Jurić says. “But in this AI- and data-driven age, those same skills will make you competitive in other data-intensive industries as well.”
No matter what path they take after graduation, these students have made a lasting contribution to the exciting work at DiRAC. It’s work that will usher in a new era of astronomy and help us better understand the universe — and our place in it.
