Department of Astronomy Graduate Students Publish Research Paper in The Astronomical Journal

Research Categorizes Galaxies in a Database

A group of Yonsei graduate students from the Department of Astronomy recently published an article in The Astronomical Journal (IF 4.965), a peer-reviewed, Science Citation Index (SCI) publication.  Written by Oh Kyu-seok, Choi Hyun-seop, Kim Hong-geun, and Moon Jun-sung, along with their advisor, Astronomy Professor Sukyoung K. Yi, “Demographics of Sloan Digital Sky Survey galaxies along the Hubble sequence” presents the statistical properties of a volume-limited sample of 7,429 galaxies from the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS)—a massive astronomical survey that mapped one quarter of the entire sky, including galaxies, quasars, and stars.  Their research categorizes galaxies in a database according to morphology distribution, which should provide a useful reference for future researchers conducting comparative analyses of galaxies.  Choi, Kim, and Moon began the research last year when they were still Yonsei undergraduates, taking a course entitled “Galaxies and Universe” in the Department of Astronomy.  With the supervision of Professor Yi, and the collaboration of Oh, a PhD candidate, their research project blossomed—Choi, Kim, and Moon learned more sophisticated techniques of data analysis from their mentors, who also guided them through the process of writing a more comprehensive literature review.   The supportive research environment for both undergraduate and graduate students in the Department of Astronomy, according to Professor Yi, has produced spectacular results:  “This journal article includes a very large volume-limited sample of 7,429 galaxies, and I believe that there are very few undergraduate or first-year masters students in the world who could have completed such research.  Based upon my personal experience teaching at Yale and Oxford, I can confidently say that there is no difference in quality between students from those institutions and Yonsei.  This article is proof of that.”