Cole Meyer

The color of an object tells us about the properties of both the object and the light that illuminates it. By measuring the colors of objects in space (e.g., stars, galaxies, planets, interstellar gas and dust), we can infer how hot those objects are, what elements those objects are made of, how those objects move around, and much more. I build scientific instruments that measure colors in astronomical objects, with the eventual goal of launching those instruments onboard NASA sounding rockets and studying how stars are formed in our Milky Way galaxy.