Rediscovering the night sky after the pandemic
Nature is one thing that never ceases to amaze me. Prior to the onset of the pandemic, I often camped. So, after a year of staring at my computer screen and not being able to see more than a handful of stars each night, venturing into the vast natural beauty that is Mojave Trails National Monument and gazing up at the ink black skies and the awe-inspiring beauty of the Milky Way on our field excursions, I couldn’t help but feel the way so many of us do.… incredibly lucky and also very, very small.
Deep in the Mojave, researching the night sky
Research by WISDOM interns help us understand the quality and the importance of the Mojave Desert’s dark night skies. Last fall a cohort of three college women began monitoring the night sky quality in the western portion of Mojave Trails National Monument. Their research will help the Bureau of Land Management in its effort to work toward International Dark Sky support for the National Monument.
Why we’re tracking beetles in the Mojave Desert
The Women in Science Discovering Our Mojave internship program has provided new insights into the movement of bighorn sheep in the Mojave Desert, with game cameras collecting data and images of the elusive species. In addition to tracking data on the comings-and-going of those lovable caprines, we’re also doing data collection on a slightly less cuddly species that are shaking things up in Afton Canyon.