Professor, students mapping the Milky Way

Robert Benjamin

Physics professor Robert Benjamin is fundamentally changing the way astronomers view the Milky Way along with some help from NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope and UW-Whitewater undergraduate students.

"It's a big galaxy out there and if I can give each student a piece to study we can discover a lot more," he said.

As is the philosophy at UW-Whitewater, Benjamin strongly believes that including students in research is an extension of teaching responsibilities. "The point of being a professor is to share knowledge."

Since 2004, Benjamin has involved physics students in his work with the NASA space satellite project, GLIMPSE (Galactic Legacy Infrared Midplane Survey Extraordinaire). Students, including 2005 graduate Heidi Gneiser, helped him conduct a comprehensive structural analysis of the galaxy.

"I worked with Bob to visually examine the first set of GLIMPSE data," Gneiser said. "It was a great first project. We would search through the image, pick out interesting objects/regions in the sky and record the coordinates. Then we'd look in the databases and star catalogues to see if anyone else had discovered that object previously. Bob was able to simplify that into an easy and exciting project."

GLIMPSE has been exciting for Benjamin because of the sheer nature of the research and the countless benefits for UW-Whitewater students.

"Students have the opportunity to work with NASA data that has come directly from the telescope, putting them on the front lines of discovery," he said. "UW-Whitewater students are some of the very first people on the planet to find new stars, star-forming regions and other interesting objects."

Gneiser, who currently works at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics (CfA), knows what it's like to make a new discovery. While doing her undergraduate research project with Benjamin, she discovered relatively unknown "bow shocks," or little wakes given off from moving stars.

"Bob has a passion for bow shocks, so when he gave me the data set for my research project, I assumed he already knew about the two quite apparent bow shocks in the region," she said. "But that assumption was wrong�I recall it was while Bob was generating a poster for a research conference that I casually asked if he'd pulled the bow shocks from my data set. He quickly asked to see them as he knew nothing of them. It was a proud moment to be able to reverse roles."

That discovery eventually led to a paper, which was recently submitted for publication in the leading astronomy journal, Astrophysical Journal Letters.

"Astronomy is about the thrill of discovery," Benjamin said. "Occasionally, we'll discover something unknown like with Heidi. But just looking at the same old sky you can discover new things."

Which is exactly what Gneiser took away from her experience. "Working with Bob opened my eyes to the world of astronomy and scientific research in general. I know that without him I would have never known that a job like mine at the CfA even existed. For that I am very grateful."