I began performing in musicals onstage since my early childhood and have never looked back! I love to perform; it serves my outlet to express myself authentically and unapologetically. After a hard day of school or work, I always know that I have my theatre community at Vanderbilt to come back to. This curtain represents my love for the stage and community that comes with it.
My name is Matthew Moy. I am an undergraduate student at Vanderbilt University. I am pursuing a major in Political Science and a minor in Astronomy. I am passionate about learning more about astronomy and astrophysics. I am also the President and Founder of Vanderbilt Undergraduate Science Olympiad (VUSO). While we work on finishing our website, I’d recommend bookmarking or saving our homepage to stay tuned for more updates!
To some, the zodiac is just something that determines your horoscope when you open your newspaper, but of course that would be astrology.
In actuality, the zodiac is the group of constellations that serve as the direct backdrop to the sun’s yearlong light show (meaning it’s Scorpius and Capricornus, not Scorpio and Capricorn). Of course, since the sun completely drowns out any surrounding competitors for screentime and the constellation active at the time disappears with the sun at night, your chances of actually seeing your sign during your special month are slim.
The thirteenth sign most people don’t know about would be the Snake Charmer, Ophiuchus. It’s settled right between Scorpius and Sagittarius and vaguely resembles a snake in a pot. Most horoscopes tend to remove it from the lineup, mostly since ancient civilizations still followed the current “twelve month calendar” thing and deemed it easier to just round it down to a more even number.
Or, considering we’re talking about horoscopes here, perhaps they were just superstitious.
Galileo Galilei (2/15/1564-1/8/1642) is best remembered for researching and popularizing the idea of a heliocentric solar system, rather than the geocentric one widely accepted as truth. Galilei also worked to disprove the idea that the stars as seen in the sky do not change positions and was the first create topological maps of mountains and craters on the moon, which was formerly assumed to be smooth and translucent.
The time around which Galilei did much of his research was a time of political and religious unrest all over Europe. The Thirty Years’ War began in May 23, 1618 from tensions caused by the Roman Empire, and as the name implies, Europe had to deal with that for a very long time until its end in October 23, 1648, by which point Galilei himself was dead. December 16 of 1631, a mere two years prior to when Galilei was tried for heresy, saw the eruption of Vesuvius and the death of thousands as a result.
Of course, human interference on a more individual level hindered Galilei’s efforts as well, as Pope Urban VIII (4/5/1568-7/29/1644) was the Pope who oversaw Galilei’s condemnation and imprisonment. Urban’s reign, regardless of Galilei’s influence was one of expansion by force and mission reformation, meaning that teachings that may contradict with what he is attempting to enforce may threaten the state.
Learning of the religious conflicts occurring during Galilei’s lifetime adds a new layer of depth to why he fought such an uphill battle to get his theories instated as facts. Tensions were already high at the moment, and world-changing revelations seemed like a massive threat to the already fragile status quo. Not helping matters was the then-recent catastrophic natural disaster that could very easily be read as divine intervention or even a preemptive punishment.
This is a picture of me in Pompeii during my semester abroad! One of my main interests is Classics.
What’s good everyone! My name is Andres Becerra. This picture was taken this past summer in San Diego, California. I am from Phoenix, Arizona but the bulk of my family lives in San Diego, so we go over to visit quite often. I play Ultimate Frisbee here at Vanderbilt and play the drums for the basketball games which you’ll see in the picture below.
Picture above by: Gabriela Pinilla
This is me playing drums for the Anchor of Sound, Vanderbilt’s athletic band. Music has always been a big part of my life, so much so that I even made a song with one of my friends from back home. He is a producer and we made this song about whole milk in like an hour. Here’s the music video we made for it (the song is also on Spotify and Apple Music)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tEis_BaKQxk
Bonus picture of my dog, Dakota, taken by me 
Hi! I’m Jack, a senior studying Mechanical Engineering at Vanderbilt University. The image below shows where I’m from: Jupiter, Florida! Sadly, my hometown was not named after the planet, Jupiter.
Hello everyone, my name is Thomas Shelton and I’m a sophomore here at Vanderbilt. My favorite baseball team is the New York Mets.
Hi all! My name is Adriana and I am so excited to share some of my favorite astronomy findings with you all this semester! I promise I’ll try not to just excitedly yell about them. I am a senior majoring in Communication Studies and as you can probably guess from my image, I am a Gemini. (I will not be able to escape the astrology references, even though they are not scientifically backed.)
I am from New Jersey where I love to spend a lot of time at the beach. I took the photo above this summer when the moon appeared low and bright in the night sky. Earlier that night, as the moon was rising, it appeared to have a red or orange tint as well. This phenomenon can be explained here: Why the Moon sometimes looks orange. Pay attention the next time you see the moon rise, especially if you are on the East Coast and see it coming above the horizon, to notice this change in hue! As we know, our eyes can deceive us when looking at elements in space, but we will work to uncover the science to explain it!
