Digitalcommons@USU

Utah State University DigitalCommons@USU The Utah Statesman Students 12-5-2013 The Utah Statesman, December 5, 2013 Utah State University Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/newspapers Recommended Citation Utah State University, "The Utah Statesman, December 5, 2013" (2013). The Utah Statesman. 673. https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/newspapers/673 This Book is brought to you for free and open access by the Students at DigitalCommons@USU. It has been accepted for inclusion in The Utah Statesman by an authorized administrator of DigitalCommons@USU. For more information, please contact [email protected]. The StatesmanUtah State University • Logan, Utah UtahFormer basketball star It’s a starry night for a returns to work Christmas concert at alma mater Page 3 page 5 Thursday, Dec. 5, 2013 435-797-1742 www.utahstatesman.com Free single copy Campaigning for Shooting beyond the stars office off-campus Special infrared telescope USU’s Space Dynamics Lab helped build gets additional gets a second chance at mapping the heavens 4By David Berg look, still banned staff writer 4By Danielle Manley USU’s Space Dynamics Laboratory is preparing assistant news editor to propose a new program that would build on the success of the Wide-field Infrared Survey The USU Student Association Executive Council Explorer satellite program in partnership with passed changes to its election bylaws at their final NASA. meeting for the semester Tuesday night. After being in hibernation for almost two Continuing debates from Nov. 25, the council years, NASA has granted the reactivation and looked at the new bylaws for the second time and renewed use of the WISE satellite, which had its the officers had mixed feelings about off-cam- entire payload developed at SDL. pus campaigning. The final decision upheld the “It is a wonderful opportunity to reuse our restriction of off-campus campaigns, but further assets,” said Amy Mainzer, the principal inves- specified the allowed use of campaign materials in tigator of the renewed project at NASA’s Jet apartment buildings or other residential proper- Propulsion Lab. ties. According to Mainzer, the WISE satellite was Organizations and Diversity Vice President put into orbit December 2009. It had an initial Sonina Hernandez initially had a concern with the run of 10 months with the liquid hydrogen sup- election rules allowing candidates to hang large ply that kept the instrumentation cooled being banners outside businesses but not being able to exhausted during that time. Instead of being campaign decommissioned, NASA decided to put the satel- with fly- lite into hibernation. With the satellite still func- ers inside Get Social tional, the JPL received the reactivation authoriza- the build- tion last August. ing. The Follow us on If all goes well, the satellite will be able to thought Twitter extend its original lifetime well into 2017, sparked @UtahStatesman Mainzer said. The renewed project will be known a 40-min- as the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared ute dis- Survey Explorer. cussion According Mainzer, all looks good so far in the between the council. recalibration process. At the current rate of recal- After learning of the discussion, Associate Vice ibration, conservative estimates for the satellite to President of Student Services Eric Olsen wrote an be prepared for data collection are for the end of email where he worried about the image of USU, March. which USU/SA President Doug Fiefia shared with When discussing the importance of this pro- the council. The group talked about the importance gram, Shane Larson, a research associate professor of being a good neighbor to the residents of the of astronomy working jointly with Northwestern valley. University and USU, said, “The game is about Photo courtesy NASA Charley Riddle, Athletics and Campus Recreation cataloging.” VP, compared elections to a trip to Las Vegas. THIS INFRARED IMAGE from NASA’s Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer, or WISE, shows From an astronomer’s perspective, the impor- the Lambda Centauri nebula, a star-forming cloud in our Milky Way galaxy, also known as the Running “If we have our own student body getting pissed tance of the both the WISE and NEOWISE Chicken nebula. The nebula, cataloged as IC 2944, is about 5,800 light-years from Earth and is home off because of elections, I’d rather not be annoying programs, is its ability to look at the universe to a new cluster of stars born from the cloud nearly 8 million years ago. Main Street in Logan,” Riddle said. “What happens in infrared wavelengths, according to Larson. in Vegas stays in Vegas. What happens in elections Infrared is light that doesn’t have enough energy ments. Some of the objects are known as dark to predict when and where these events occur. should stay in elections.” to be seen by the human eye. asteroids, and there could be many in close orbit Once recalibration is finished, the data collect- The council decided to restrict campaigns To view in the infrared, satellites need to be to Earth. ed will aid in predicting such events. According off-campus because it would be too difficult to reg- ulate the actions, but campaigning will be allowed kept extremely cold, according to Larson. The One such object was the meteor that struck to Mainzer, the reason that recalibration will WISE satellite was kept cooled with a cryostat in apartment complexes and private residential Chelyabinsk, Russia back in February 2013. The take until at least March comes from the fact that using liquid hydrogen, which stays a liquid at areas. After another discussion, the group also the satellite needs to finish lowering to its opera- temperatures just above absolute zero, or -460 airburst from the meteor’s explosion injured close decided to restrict vehicle campaigning. degrees Fahrenheit. The cryostat was part of to 15,000 people and damaged more than 7,000 tional temperature. In hibernation, the satellite “We’d have to make a lot of exceptions,” said the payload developed at the Space Dynamics buildings. was pointed toward Earth for half of its orbit. Graduate Studies Sen. Brittney Garbrick about Laboratory. According to Larson, events like this occur This is a problem because Earth radiates heat at Larson said some items in space can only be regularly. By charting out the orbits using the observed through the use of infrared instru- WISE and NEOWISE programs, it will be easier jSee TELESCOPE, Page 2 jSee ELECTION, Page 2 World-record Professor asks students how Count My Vote Secret Santa gets support reaches USU they feel about faith diversity from presidents 4By Maile Burnett staff writer 4By Lis Stewart community news editor 4By Morgan Pratt An anthropology professor is staff writer starting a study of the spiritual and Utah’s colleges and universities are joining religious diversity environment on the conversation on Count My Vote, an initia- campus by interviewing students tive to put the question of replacing the state’s Students at USU are getting into about their religious experiences. caucus system on the ballot and replace it with the Christmas spirit by partic- It is Bonnie Glass-Coffin’s hope a direct primary. ipating in the world’s largest that the study will reveal what pro- The Utah Student Association, comprised of Secret Santa. grams the university should devel- all college and university student body presi- Reddit.com shattered its pre- op to promote religious diversity dents in the state, voted to support the measure vious world record of 44,000 par- on campus. and gather signatures for the petition at their ticipants in the holiday tradition “We want to ask students, facul- regular meeting Nov. 13. with 122,000 Secret Santas from ty, staff and administrators about “Do I believe that Count My Vote is necessar- 163 different countries. This our particular campus climate, so ily the perfect fix for the caucus system? No, but met and surpassed the social we know the right kinds of pro- there are definitely problems with the caucus news site’s original goal to have grams to develop,” she said. system as it stands,” said Doug Fiefia, president 100,000 people sign up this year. During the interview, students Meghann Nixon photo of the USA and president of the USU Student Kaylynn Kimball, a soph- are asked how they feel about Association. “I believe that we should at least omore, participated in the gift MICHELLE BOGDAN, director of the Access and Diversity Center, religious and spiritual issues, if says religious diversity is important to have on campus. support it to get on the ballot so that all utah exchange two years ago. The they feel their spiritual needs are voters can decide if this is something that is event works by signing up and being met, and how others view getting matched with someone their religion, according to Glass- campus,” Glass-Coffin said. “But the Access and Diversity Center, and secretly buying Christmas Coffin. She wants to know if there we don’t have any history talking believes it is important for Student present for them. is a desire for conversations cross- about religious diversity.” Services to not only promote cul- Online exclusive “You go to their Reddit page, ing lines of religion in the public Glass-Coffin wants to improve tural, racial, ethnic and sexual ori- and you see what they’re inter- university setting. students’ religious literacy and entation diversity, but also spiri- Want more? ested in and things like that,” “We have a lot of history, exper- their ability to have difficult dis- tual diversity amongst faith-based Finish the story on our Kimball said. “The more you tise, people and offices who are cussions with those of a different and non-believers.

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