The time has come...for administrative duties.

So you remember when I said that you are released and have to basically fend for yourself and make a name for yourself at Uppsala. The same goes for when you have finished. Now that I have finished my presentation, which went excellent by the way, I have to do the administrative tasks required to apply for my degree. That means chasing down teachers to get my grades reported, getting signatures indicating my thesis has been approved and I passed, and then I wait. Wait!? What for? Well, now I have to wait till all the grades are put into the system. Once that is done, then I have the points to apply for my degree. Well everything is done so now I wait. Once the points have been put into the system, and I submit the application, then I am completely done. It is ok though. It basically gives me a reason to come by and see what is happening within the walls of Ångström and talk to people about current and future projects. Hopefully to see if there is something I would be interested in doing as a future Ph.D. project. That is for next week though. As for now, the day is done so I am going home to relax and enjoy the fact that I have completed my M.Sc. from Uppsala University. Good luck to all the future students, perhaprs we will see each other walking the halls one day.

The time is near and I am almost ready

So in the past two weeks I have been running around trying to get my thesis to a point where it satisfies my supervisor, Jan-Erik.Today, I got the thumbs up. I have booked a time and place for my final presentation and now am working on finishing up the presentation. I have been in this home stretch longer than I imagined I would, but making sure the small details are taken care of is important. I am fortunate that my supervisors are readily accessible to ensure my work is as complete as possible. However, upon finishing,there were some interesting questions that arose and a slight rework of some my analysis was done. Technically, I did a new data analysis lowering my data's altitude ceiling from 1,400km to 1,150km. This changed the shape and distribution of my final plot indicating that there were other processes going on below the density peak (density peak is the point in Titan's ionosphere that has the largest concentration of particles). I am sure that there this requires some further analysis and I have been given a direction to pursue to see what happens.

In other news, now that my work has been completed and final steps are in the works, it is time to turn my attention to the future. Specifically speaking, PhD positions. There has been one advertised as of this moment and I have to complete it by the end of February. It is in Stockholm, not in Uppsala, so I am cautious. However, if they are 10% of what is here at Uppsala, then it would be a great place to study. Perhaps not as good as Uppsala, but...can't really think of something to say here. Uppsala is great.

As my time at Uppsala draws to a close, I have begun to reflect and become wistful. All in all,I am reminded of a poem by Robert Frost, "The Road Not Taken". For those not familiar, here is the link.

I shall be telling this with a sigh

Somewhere ages and ages hence:

Two roads diverged in a wood, and I--

I took the one less traveled by,

And that has made all the difference.

Thank you to all the people at Uppsala University; the ladies in the registration office, the people that work the access card/key counter, the cashier at Jalla that asked how I was doing every time I visited, the lady at the front counter who reluctantly smiled back at me, and all the people in IRF and the astro corridor that have made this experience more than anyone could have possibly asked for. Specifically naming people and saying what they have done would take forever, so I will just list those that have made a significant influence during my time here.

Thank you Andreas Korn.
Thank you Anders Eriksson.
Thank you Mats André.
Thank you Nikolai Piskunov.
Thank you Jan-Erik Wahlund.
Thank you Jan Bergman.
Thank you Sven-Erik Jansson.
Thank you Lennart Åhlén.
Thank you Karin Ågrin.
Thank you Nils Bergvall.

And in case I forgot, which is quite possible, Thank you (insert name here). :)

Ok, now I have to do a small bit of analysis. I will let every one know how the presentation went. Till then, don't stop striving for success.

The date has been set!

So as the final work on my thesis is being completed, I had to spend some time working out a date for my final presentation. February 14, 2013 at 10:30am. At some time in the afternoon in some location within Ångström, I will stand and present the work that I have done. I am excited and a bit nervous. It is also a bittersweet feeling. As wonderful as it is to have finished my work and put the icing on the cake, so to speak, there is a part of me that is going to miss what I have enjoyed the past few years. All things change, and I will always have a fondness for Uppsala and I only hope that the work I have done here will be enough to warrant a future career in astronomy or space physics. Currently I am putting the finishing touches on my thesis based on comments I received from my supervisor, crossing all the t's and dotting all the i's to make sure that the paperwork is completed so I am ready to move on to the next chapter and challenge of my life. Now don't go and think this is the end, I still have three weeks before everything is said and done and it will be a busy time. So keep up, we are at the home stretch but there is always more to do. :) --> ok, so maybe more than a little excited.

Nearing an end...

So I received an email today from Jan-Erik telling me that he had finished reading my thesis. Tomorrow I will go and we will discuss the changes he has suggested and possibly move forward even deeper into the project. Again, my project is determining electron temperature distributions within Titan's lower ionosphere. Well, with the results that I have gotten, I have decided that I want to take a bold step and see if it is possible to start making predictions of electron temperatures. If that works, then that will go a long way in helping to explain the processes that control the temperatures in this region. It is a long shot, but those are what I like. Being able to find the connections and draw conclusions that most do not expect is a wonderful thing. In any case, we will find out tomorrow what his thoughts are. After that, I will set up a final presentation and then my master's work here at Uppsala will be finished. The only thing that will remain after my presentation will be to run around,dot my i's and cross my t's so as to ensure there will be no problem transitioning to the next step, whatever that may be. Just in time for the next round of PhD position announcements. Because of my personal matter, I was unable to secure myself a position last year. Oh well,if at first you do not succeed, try, try again.

After a long absence, a welcome return

Hej alla!

After an unfortunate and personal leave of absence, I have returned to finish my master's work. The people here in the physics department were extremely understanding especially given the circumstances of my "disappearance". Now that everything has come to a close in that area, I can focus wholly on my studies. Of course, my return to Sweden was a bit cold. I left Mississippi at 20 plus and landed in Sweden at 20 below. It took a while but I have adjusted well enough. Now that my thesis is written, I have to wait eagerly for the comments from my supervisor (just a bit scared), and in the meantime prepare for my presentation. Then my master's work will be finished. I have also been practicing some Swedish in my free time. It will make the jokes funny if I can understand what is being said. Now it is time to do some more reading and prepare for tomorrow, another day doing what I enjoy most, trying to understand the universe I am a part of. Hej då.

Results...?

So as you know, I have been working hard at my master's thesis. Well, recently, there was a break through...I think. I found a dependence of electron temperature on RAM angle (the angle between the Cassini spacecraft and the ram point on Titan). It is quite linear and it exists for a certain range covering most of Titan. You can see this below:

If you look at the plot on the top right, you will see the linear dependence from about 40 to 130 degrees ram angle. This was an interesting result. Many more plots were made to attempt and reject this but it seems to show up in most of them. Now this is where it gets a little more interesting. While making all these other plots, I seem to have stumbled upon information that confirms the work of two others that are also working on Titan data, mainly that there is a 'hump' in density around 1050km and that density and temperature have an inverse relationship. The positive note from this is that my data gathering methods are correct and that this phenomenon isn't due to me biasing the data  or making plots of the wrong thing. So...yay me! But now I have a few more things to this week to attempt to investigate this result and see if anything can explain this phenomena. So one hurdle past, another lays before me. Oh well, that is science...always more to do.

In other news, I found four more PhD positions to apply for in Stockholm so that brings the total that I will apply for to eight. So far two are finished, I am waiting on one recommendation letter to complete two more and then these other four are not due until the beginning of next month. Which reminds me, I need to ask one of my references to remove specific information from the recommendation he wrote so that I can use it to apply for these new positions that I have found.So if we were to number the positions that I am applying for (by way of due date) and then place them in order of preference, you would get:
1 3 2 5 6 7 8 4.

Now that shouldn't make too much sense, but more or less means I want to stay in Uppsala...if they will have me. For any that are thinking of applying against me...good luck, but don't try too hard, I really want the position. :)

Anyway, I have enough work to last me until the end of June and the longer I wait, the more I will have to do later. Have a good day and see you around Ångstrom.

Plots, plots, everywhere...

So in my last post, I mentioned my thesis. Now I admit I got off to a slow start, but that was because I had to teach myself MATLAB. However, once I got the hang of it, I am pumping out more results than my professor can keep up with. In fact, last week, he asked me to stop seeing him so he could other things done. I was too excited. So what I did was to re-organize all the data. I took the ephemeris data from Cassini and matched it to available Langmuir probe data so we had a location for each measurement. I then added solar coordinates to the data and from that calculated the solar zenith angle and the RAM angle (this requires explanation which I will not get into). Anyway, after all that, I created a data file that contained all the information. So for each flyby, there is a data file that contains all the relevant information. Once this was done, I could simply write simple commands and produce plots for anything in any number of dimensions. I attempted to put a rotating 3D plot for you to view but it didnt quite work out. So instead I just put up an example plot below.

This is the first flybys from Cassini. There will be a few more added next week, but it is basically a map (altitude not shown) of all flybys below a certain altitude. This plot doesn't really give that much insight into what is happening, it is more of a map than anything else.

In other news, our SNSB proposal was rejected. :( Oh well, it was a great learning experience and we gave the professionals a run for their money. But thanks to the feedback I received, I know the weak points of our proposal and now have experience in writing them so the next one will surely go better.

And lastly, PhD positions. Since I am oh so close to finishing up my master's, I have to think about the future. There are several positions here in Uppsala, and I plan on applying to all of them (I already have applied to one, and will do the other two this week --> my professor is out of town and told me to take a break). There is also one in Norway which I plan to apply to. I have gotten almost all of references and now have to write my letters (basically a personal statement) and update my cv. Busy few months ahead with this and thesis and a homework assignment I still owe. But I can do it. And besides, if I don't, someone else will and I won't have the opportunity to contribute. That is unacceptable.

Until next time...