Beckham V. 2026 | BASIS Independent Brooklyn
- Project Title: Quasistars and the Early Universe
- BASIS Independent Advisor: Mr. Kostopoulos and Ms. Kannan
- Internship Location: FlowData LLC (Remote)
- Onsite Mentor: Dr. Jim Chonko
Imagine a star that is wider than the Solar System, tens of thousands of times more massive than the Sun and devouring itself from the inside. It sounds like something from an outlandish sci-fi movie, but these quasistars likely did exist in the hot, dense universe 500 million years after the Big Bang. This project studies how the birth, life, and death of a quasistar around 13 billion years ago would affect its surrounding galaxy. In this project, I collect data through research papers and publicly available NASA pictures and studies. Using that data, and with the assistance of Jim Chonko of FlowData LLC, I determine a realistic base for a model galaxy, and then calculate different properties of the galaxy, including temperature, density, and star formation rate, in different regions. Through my research, I expect to find that galaxies centered around quasistars will be quite different from the galaxies we can see today. Ultimately, this project aims to help advance the relatively unexplored study of the early universe and quasistars.
