{"id":87916,"date":"2018-11-28T15:57:08","date_gmt":"2018-11-29T01:57:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/?p=87916"},"modified":"2019-03-27T14:41:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-28T00:41:00","slug":"maunakea-scholar-daclison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.hawaii.edu\/news\/2018\/11\/28\/maunakea-scholar-daclison\/","title":{"rendered":"Maunakea scholar studies Star Wars planet"},"content":{"rendered":"Reading time: <\/span> 2<\/span> minutes<\/span><\/span>
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Maunakea Scholar Laura Daclison, right, and her mom at the Keck Observatory\u2019s remote operations room in Waimea, Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span>.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Star Wars<\/em> universe turned from science fiction to science fact for a Waipahu High School student, who observed a real-life “Tatooine” using one of the largest, most scientifically-impactful observatories in the world.<\/p>\n

High school senior Laura Daclison performed professional, astronomical observations of Kepler-35 using the W.M. Keck Observatory<\/a>. Like Luke Skywalker\u2019s home planet, which has two suns, Kepler-35 has a planet that orbits a pair of star—a circumbinary system.<\/p>\n

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An artist\u2019s rendition of the Kepler-35 planetary system. (Credit: Lynette Cook, extrasolar.spaceart.org)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Daclison is part of the Maunakea Scholars program<\/a>, a collaboration between the Department of Education<\/a>, the University of Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span><\/a> and Maunakea Observatories. Â鶹´«Ã½<\/span> public high school students apply for observing time on world-class Maunakea telescopes, and the selected students are then paired with a mentor and telescope staff who assist them with their research.<\/p>\n