My NASA Internship: The “closest I will ever get” to space

Like every other kid, I have always dreamed of going to space. Space has constantly taunted me from above as unattainable, like a mysterious ocean waiting to be explored. I mean, who knows what could be out there? White holes? Aliens? Darth Vader? The possibilities are endless.

This summer, I got the closest I will ever get to this dream as an intern for NASA through the NASA SEES — STEM Enhancement in Earth Science — program. While it was nowhere near going to space, I was able to understand better what goes on behind the scenes and have so much fun while doing it.

The program gave me many opportunities to understand better what it is like to be a professional in STEM. One such opportunity was taking online courses created by NASA and the University of Texas at Austin about the galaxy, Python coding and Earth sciences to understand topics better and prepare me for my internship. Additionally, I listened to and met different space professionals, including someone who went on the Apollo-13 mission, to better grasp the experience of being a space professional. Finally, I got to be a part of a group led by an experienced professional who did hands-on research.

During my internship, I was assigned to a group researching exoplanet transits. Simply put, exoplanets are planets that orbit stars other than the Sun, and transits occur when a planet passes between a star and whatever instrument is observing it. My group and I used authentic images taken by my group’s mentor in an observatory to find these transits occurring and extract data from them, such as finding the mid-transit times of the exoplanets and calculating their sizes.

The poster presentation Luke Thomann ’25 and his group put together explaining their research during their internships at the NASA SEES program

What does that mean? We used images, gathered by our mentor on specialized telescopes, to track a particular star’s brightness and detect transits. We calibrated this data by averaging the images to account for external factors. We then used two different software programs — AstroImageJ and Holoman Photometry Software — to go through many complicated steps to analyze the images to produce relative flux curves, which allowed us to detect the transit of exoplanets and study the curve for additional types of data.

This program came with its fair share of challenges. Firstly, there was a significant learning curve when using the various software to analyze the data. I had only ever taken one middle school computer science class before this experience, and I worried that it would put me behind the other group members. I was right; I messed up plenty of times and definitely struggled the most. However, after countless questions and tutorials from my incredibly supportive mentor, I learned to extract data just as well as anyone else in my group.

Additionally, one of my worst fears came true when I learned I would have to speak in front of subject-matter experts, NASA professionals and, most frighteningly, my peers. At the end of the program, there was a virtual symposium, where my group presented our research in a 20-minute presentation for all to see. Infused with anxiety about this daunting task, I put countless hours and a few late nights into perfecting my slides and rehearsing my part of the presentation. Despite my initial qualms, my presentation went seamlessly.

The SEES experience taught me so much, thanks to my wonderful mentor and peers. Before this program, I had no idea about exoplanets or their transits, but it unlocked a new fascination and intensified my passion for astronomy.