Tag: the rapidian

For centuries, the night sky has sparked wonder in the hearts of humankind. Rather it be ancient star watchers drawing constellations in the sky to academics rigorously studying the cosmos with advanced technology, the stars, planets, and galaxies that reveal themselves when the lights go out have always been of great interest. Recently, these fixtures of the night sky have been joined by a new visitor; 3I/ATLAS, an interstellar comet.

3I/ATLAS was first discovered on July 1, 2025 by a telescope in Chile ran by the Asteroid Terrestrial-impact Last Alert System (ATLAS), a program developed by the University of Hawaii and funded by NASA, during one of it’s many automatic scans of the night sky. After this initial discovery, the records of ATLAS and other astronomy organizations were combed to find other images of the comet. Through this effort, records of the comet have been found all the way back in June 14.

The vast majority of comets that people have seen and interacted with originate from within our Solar System. Specifically, these comets typically originate from a region on the outskirts of the Solar System known as the Oort Cloud, a spherical cloud of icy remnants of the formation of our Solar System. According to the European Space Agency, this cloud is to far from Earth to have ever been observed directly.

3I/ATLAS, however, is different. 3I/ATLAS is what’s known as an interstellar comet. This means that the comet originates from outside of our Solar System. According to NASA, we know of it’s extrasolar origin from it’s orbital path. Unlike normal comets, whose trajectories can be traced as a complete orbit around our sun, 3I/ATLAS has a hyperbolic orbit. This means that it’s path can be represented as a line that gets curved by our sun’s gravitational pull.

This status as an interstellar comet makes 3I/ATLAS very interesting for researchers. This is largely due to the extremely rare nature of these types of celestial bodies, with 3I/ATLAS is only the third interstellar object to have ever been found passing through the Solar System. This, in part, is due to the difficulty involved in detecting such objects. According to David DeBruyn, Curator-emeritus of the Roger B. Chaffee Planetarium and former member of the board of the Grand Rapids Amateur Astronomical Association, “…these things have probably been flying through the Solar System for a very long time, and it’s not that unusual. It’s just that now we have the instrumentation and the survey techniques to pick them up.”

This interest has motivated researchers, such as those at NASA, to devote attention to studying the comet before it leaves. This can be seen in the variety of telescopic tools and observatories that have turned to view 3I/ATLAS, such as the James Webb Telescope, the Perseverance Rover, and the Psyche spacecraft. The images have revealed multiple facts about 3I/ATLAS. One particular topic of interest is the composition of the comet. According to Dr. Lauren Woolsey, a professor of astronomy at Grand Rapids Community Collage, “… the chemical makeup, so what elements are present and how much of each of those elements, is going to be slightly different than our Solar System because it formed from a collection of material that would be very similar to but not identical to our Solar System. Often, when we’re studying comets or asteroids; anything that we’ve sent small satellites to orbit or land on, they are object that we know formed with our Solar System and they’re giving us clues about our Solar System’s past and the chemical makeup of it. This one is different because it formed in a slightly different area, so a slightly different cloud of gas and dust.”

She goes on to elaborate, “…it’s giving us a sense of being able to compare and contrast our Solar System and rather it is a standard assortment of elements or if there is anything unique to either our Solar System or unique to this particular object.” One notable feature found in this regard is heightened levels of diatomic carbon (C2). This particular type of carbon contributes to a signature green color of the comet when heated. DeBruyn also noted that 3I/ATLAS is rich in substances like carbon monoxide, unlike comets from our solar system, which are chiefly made of ice.

One misconception that both Dr.Woolsey and Mr. DeBruyn made a point of discouraging is speculation about the comet being an extraterrestrial spacecraft. There is no credible scientific evidence regarding an intelligent source of 3I/ATLAS. “All the evidence suggests that this is merely a vagabond comet.”succinctly puts DeBruyn. This misconception has, in part, been spread by previous coverage of the comet. “It goes without saying that a lot of media coverage has been speculation about intelligence or extraterrestrial origins and I think that’s very harmful speculation that is based on no evidence” explains Dr. Woolsey.

For Grand Rapidians who wish to try and view 3I/ATLAS, the best chance to view the comet would be to get to a dark region and to view it through a telescope, since it’s too faint to see with the naked eye. Specifically, one would be able to view the comet near the constellation Leo. However, when asked, David DeBruyn said that he knew of no successful sightings in the area, even among members of the GRAAA. Even so, he also mentioned that the winter night sky, due to the rotation of the Earth, is vastly different from the summer. This includes brighter stars than that of the summer, meaning that any hopeful 3I/ATLAS viewers won’t leave empty handed.

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Thank you for reading to the end! Special thanks to Dr. Lauren Woolsey and David DeBruyn for talking with me about the comet. This is an extended edition of a story I wrote for The Rapidian, which you can read here.

Featured Image Credit: NASA, ESA, D. Jewitt (UCLA); Image Processing: J. DePasquale (STScI)

In the past few months, the Grand Rapids Public Museum has been getting in the mood for paleontology with two new exhibits, Tyrannosaurs: Meet the Family, a traveling exhibit that will be hosted by the Grand Rapids Public Museum until April 26, 2026, and the Clapp Family Mastodon, a new exhibit featuring a mastodon found in Kent County.

Tyrannosaurs: Meet the Family is a traveling exhibit, meaning that the exhibit is moved from institution to institution as opposed to being stationed at a single museum permanently. In this case, Tyrannosaurs: Meet the Family is organized by the Australian Museum, who have hosted exhibits at the Grand Rapids Public Museum such as Sharks, which left the GRPM at the end of August.

The tyrannosaurs were defined by a few key features. According to the educator’s guide for Tyrannosaurs: Meet the Family, tyrannosaurs were unique in having their nasal bones be fused, helping their skull withstand their strong bites. To complement this, the tyrannosaur family had unique D-shaped teeth at the front of their mouths. These teeth were somewhat analogous to our incisors, helping scrap and pull meat off of captured prey.

Tyrannosaur legs and hips also had a couple of unique features. At the top of their hips, they had a rib of bone that served as an attachment point for strong leg muscles. Their legs were also noticeably longer legs then other predatory dinosaurs.

When walking into the museum, visitors are greeted by a cast skeleton of Scotty, the most massive Tyrannosaurus rex to have ever been discovered and the largest dinosaur discovered in Canada. Surrounding the skeleton are other Tyrannosaurus rex fossils, helping to illustrate some interesting findings found in the research of this Late Cretaceous predator, such as how younger individuals had longer and leaner legs, suggesting that they may have hunted differently from the adults.

Tyrannosaurs: Meet the Family, as the name suggests, is not merely about the well known Tyrannosaurus Rex, but rather celebrates the Tyrannosaur family as a whole. This is arguably most exemplified by the entrance to the main exhibit on the third floor, where visitors are greeted by Guanlong wucaii. This Late Jurassic is wildly different from the titanic Scotty in the main hall, being a relatively small dinosaur with long arms, a covering of feathers, and a prominent crest on it’s snout.

Alongside this early member of the Tyrannosaurs, many cast skeletons of Tyrannosaur species are present in the exhibition hall, ranging from Dilong paradoxus, a small, Chinese species that was the first Tyrannosaur to be discovered with feathers, to more typical representatives of the group such as Albertosaurus sarcophagus and Daspletosaurus torosus. These exhibits are complemented by a variety of real fossils and interactive stations, such as a grip test that lets visitors compare their strength to a Tyannosaurus rex bite.

The exhibit also explores how dinosaur’s evolved into their only surviving forms; the birds. The exhibit explains how small theropods such as Velociraptor mongoliensis eventually evolved into the birds of modern day. The exhibit even has skeletons of non-avian dinosaurs next to the skeletons of birds such as Dromornis stiatoni and the domestic chicken in order to show visitors the similarities between the two.

When asked about the importance of traveling exhibits, Dr. Cory Redman, GRPM’s science curator, said, “It keeps the museum fresh.” He goes on to elaborate, “It means for most people, every time they come to the museum there’s gonna be something new to see. We are working on a big redesign project and so we’re working on redesigning our core exhibits … we don’t have the staff to redo our core exhibits that frequently.”

Dr. Redman also led the excavation of the star of another GRPM paleontological exhibit that opened recently, the Clapp Family Mastodon. In the midst of a major drainage project, Busscher Construction found some bones and called multiple institutions, including the Grand Rapids Public Museum, in order to see if someone could identify the find. The bones turned out to be the skeleton of a juvenile American mastodon (Mammut americanum), Michigan’s state fossil.

This find was notable for multiple reasons. Firstly, the skeleton that was found was around 70% complete. The preservation and fossilization of paleontological remains for researchers to find remarkably rare. According to Dr. Redman, “For any kind of skeletal remains, usually over 20% is when you get pretty excited.”, putting into perspective how rare of a find the Clapp Family Mastodon is. In spot of the size of the find, the excavation was remarkably quick. Due to an ideal combination of loose soil, a shallow depth, well preserved, stable bones and significant amounts of man power, the find was removed within the span of a single day.

The exhibit also explains how researchers examined the site for evidence of the environment where the mastodon lived. One way that researchers did this was by studying the remains of pollen found in the same sediment as the Mastodon skeleton. This was done to figure out what plants would have been found at around the site. It was found that the region the skeleton was found in was primarily composed of forests made of oak and spruce trees and wetlands. This would make the environment of West Michigan during the last “ice age” (technically speaking, we are currently within an ice age that first began 2.58 million years ago. The last “ice age” is, instead, the last glacial maximum, referring to a period where ice sheets significantly advance across the land) much like modern day Northern Michigan.

The exhibit goes into farther detail regarding the environment the mastodon was found in. On one placard, visitors can find a beautifully illustrated scene by Paul Kuchniki, a student at the local community college, that demonstrates the type of scene one could find 13,000 years ago, complete with other species that have been found in Michigan fossil excavations, such as woodland muskox and Scott’s moose, both also now extinct. The placard also explains that the Clapp Family Mastodon would have also lived alongside animals that can still be found today, such as muskrat and painted turtles.

It should be noted that, while the exhibit features some actual fossils from the Clapp Family Mastodon can be found in the exhibit, such as a jawbone and a vertebrae, the full articulated skeleton that visitors can see when walking into the museum is actually a model of the actual skeleton. According to Dr. Redman, this is extremely common practice by museums, in part due to the fact that fossils are often heavy, fragile and valuable.

The bones themselves have had to be treated in order to be preserved. Unlike the Tyrannosaurs currently being housed, which went extinct at minimum tens of millions of years ago, the Clapp Family Mastodon has only been dead for about 13,210 years. This means that the skeleton has not had enough time to completely fossilize, making it more similar to bone then the stone casts that the non-avian dinosaurs are remembered through. Part of this preservation process is ensuring that the bones are dried out thoroughly and evenly.

When describing the process of ensuring this, Dr. Redman explained, “To control that drying, you put one bone in a big plastic bag, you seal it and then just leave a small opening, so you get some air flow and then you use gravity to pull any water that’s in the bone by rotating it and then you just kind of let it sit.”

For the Clapp Family Mastodon, the GRPM worked with Research Casting International to produce 3D scans of the bones and produce a 3D printed copy for exhibition. In order to fill in the gaps left from the missing piece of the skeleton, the museum and Research Casting International used models from the similarly sized Hillsborough Mastodon from New Brunswick, Canada. Attentive visitors can actually see which bones are original from the Clapp Family Mastodon and which were substituted since the two were printed in different colors, with the Clapp Family bones being a dark color while the Hillsborough bones are printed in a lighter, off white color.

The Clapp Family Mastodon is not the only mastodon found within the GRPM collection. During the interview, Dr. Redman showed off the bones of two other mastodons in the museum archive, Smitty and the Moorland Mastodon. Smitty the mastodon, which was only about 20% complete, is a part of the F is for Fossils exhibit found within the entrance hall of the museum while the Moorland Mastodon is the oldest of the museums mastodon specimens, having been discovered in 1904 and put on display at a similar time. Unlike the Clapp Family Mastadon or Smitty, the museum is unsure of exactly how complete the Moorland Mastodon. Dr. Redman has actually been working on determining which bones are original to the Moorland Mastodon and which are wood, plastor, a substitutes from a different find in Florida.

If you are interested in viewing the fossils that the Grand Rapids Public Museum has in it’s archives, the institution’s collection can be found online at https://www.grpmcollections.org/.

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Thank you for reading to the end! I would like to extend a special thanks to Dr. Cory Redman for meeting with me and letting me have a look in the museum archives. If you would like to read The Rapidian’s version of the article, you can find it here.

On October 29, an open house style public input session was held at the Sun Title Community Room regarding a proposed high-density development near Huff Park. The housing project has attracted criticism from the surrounding community due to potential concerns over environmental impacts on Huff Park.

CopperRock Construction, who, according to Ryan Schmidt of Indigo Design + Development, both own the land the potential development would go one and would construct the housing complex, first bought 1435 & 1439 Knapp Street in July 2022 and 1443 Knapp Street in February 2023, alongside others. After some meetings with the Creston Neighborhood Association Land Use Committee in the spring of that year and some push back from the local community, which includes a petition that, at the time of writing, has 7,517 signatures, CopperRock Construction paused in their progress with the plan until March of 2024, when Indigo Design + Development was approached for a joint venture with CopperRock Construction to help produce architectural designs for the potential multi-family housing units. Through the rest of 2024 and the beginning half of 2025, Indigo Design + Development began conceptual planning of the site based off past public input and participated in multiple discussions with the Grand Rapids Department of Planning. This culminated in Indigo Design + Development’s first meeting with the Creston Neighborhood Association Land Use Committee. This led to the public input meeting on Oct. 29.

In addition to the work of CopperRock Construction and Indigo Design + Development, the project would involve the input of Nederveld, which is entrusted with the civil engineering for the project, and NativEdge, a landscape architecture firm.

The development would include 24 housing units, of which 21 would be newly constructed townhomes for the site. The remaining 3 would be repurposed from the already existing homes on the property. This has already changed significantly from the initial plans for the site, which would have had the development take the form of a multifamily apartment building or a duplex.

This brings us to the public input meeting on Oct. 29. Held at the Sun Title Community Room, located at the Sun Title Insurance Company, this meeting was held as a open house style meeting, meaning that people could come and go through the scheduled time of the session as opposed to a specific presentation. Members of the community could come and ask questions regarding the proposed project. In attendance were members of the Grand Rapids Planning Department as well as Ryan and Greg Schmidt, brothers and partners of Indigo Design + Development. In addition, informational signage regarding the project was posted around the community room for community members to peruse. This included information such as a timeline of the project’s development thus far, information on the project site itself, and diagrams of the current proposed plan for the site.

When asked for the motivation for the housing project, Ryan Schmidt said, “Grand Rapids, like many cities, is facing a growing need for more housing choices. This project represents a small but meaningful step toward meeting that need, by offering homes that support walkability, efficient land use, and a vibrant, connected neighborhood”. Multiple studies into the subject seem to suggest a similar conclusion. In a study conducted by HousingNext, an organization that works toward increasing housing supply in the West Michigan area, found that there is a need for 13,232 additional housing units by 2029 in order to meet current demand for housing.

Many groups, such as HousingNext, argue that high-density housing is a good solution for this shortage. One of these reasons is the fact that high-density housing often requires less resources then low-density housing, due to the reduction in the amount of land used to house the same number of people and a reduction in the amount of car commuting, as mentioned by Ryan Schmidt.

Some concerns regarding the project have been raised, however. One of the main concerns regarding the project has been in regards to potential environmental effects on Huff Park. Huff Park occupies 80 acres in Northeast Grand Rapids. Aside from 50 acres of softball field land, the park encompasses three different types of ecological community, something that the Grand Rapids Historical Commission notes as “a rare experience in an urban area” in the book Keep on the Grass. The 30 acres of natural area at Huff Park serves as vital habitat in the highly urbanized landscape where it resides. According to the Grand Rapids Audubon Society, Huff Park serves as a home to 189 different species of bird.

Some community members have also expressed concern with the high-density nature of the proposed project. Zoning describes a collection of local laws which guide the use of land and the general structure by which a locality develops. These policies are used for a wide manner of reasons, such as public health and environmental protection. One particular implementation of such policies mentioned in handouts at the open house was zoning laws preventing industrial factories from being built near residential areas. The area where the proposed high-density development would be located is currently zoned for low-density housing, which means that a special use permit would need to be approved for the development to continue outside of the land’s normal zoning. According to Ryan Schmidt, no such permit has yet been filed.

One resident who outlined these concerns was Steve Friedsma, an architect who neighbors the proposed development that has helped spearhead opposition to the high-density plan. He mentioned how the site would require significant topographic change. This, combined with the height of the buildings, would make the project easily viewable from within the park, with the closest trail being only 330 feet. In his words, it’s “too tall, too dense, too close.”

According to Jim VanderMolen, another architect involved in opposition to the development, has said that opposition to the project has actually brought the community together. On site sources mentioned that many people who went to the open house on Oct. 29 had never been to a public hearing before. VanderMolen also mentioned that communication has greatly improved since Indigo Design + Development has joined the project, with him and Friedsma meeting with developers multiple times to discuss the communities concerns with the project.

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Thank you for reading the article! It was originally published on the Rapidian as part of my work with them which you can read here.

On Saturday Oct. 18, thousands of protesters gathered for the No Kings Rally & March, standing shoulder to shoulder in Rosa Parks Circle before marching down the streets of Grand Rapids. The second such protest after the first on June 14, timed to coincide with a parade held in Washington DC for President Donald Trump’s birthday, the protest was motivated by what has been seen as a significant political overreach by the Trump administration. Part of the broader No Kings movement, the event on Saturday was one of over 2,700 separate events held globally with a combined attendance of over 7 million.

Held in response to the policies of the Trump administration, one of the main concerns of the protesters was Trumps handling of immigrants. “… I’m particularly really mad right now about how they are treating immigration in this country… I’m really mad about how things are being handled with ICE” says Hannah Rieker, one of the protesters at the rally.

This concern was echoed by the presenters of the rally. One cause that was pushed at the rally was that of sanctuary cities and campuses. According to a speaker for Cosecha, an organization composed of immigrants and their allies to help undocumented immigrants, some policies they would like the city to adopt in regards to becoming a sanctuary city include having local government not cooperate or provide information to ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement), not allowing Grand Rapids law enforcement to cooperate with ICE agents, not allowing Grand Rapids law enforcement officers to be deputized as immigration agents, not doing business with entities profiting from the current ramping up of deportations, and a prohibiting of building new immigrant detention facilities or conversion of existing prisons to immigrant detention facilities in the city. Similarly, another speaker called for GVSU to adopt policies of non cooperation with ICE.

Another issue that protesters had with the Trump administration’s policies were with the US’s involvement with Israel. In his presentation on behalf of the Freedom Road Socialist Organization, Julian Cortez said “The violence that we face here is an extension of the violence that billionaires and their attack dogs wage around the world. So, we demand an end to the US war machine and we will oppose it wherever it raises it’s head. We need money and resources to improve our lives here, rather then ending lives overseas. So we say, we stand in unequivocal support of the Palestinian people…” Issues with Trump’s Issues with Trump’s expansion of presidential power, which Lauren Comen, one of the organizers of the event, referred to as him “eating the checks and balances”. She goes on to add that he’s “… threatening cities unless they bend to his will using federal forces against his own people …”.

After the rally, the march coordinator got on stage and directed the crowd on how to position themselves, the general plan for the march, and safety advice for what to do if confronted by the police. They also pointed to the safety volunteers, who helped monitor street crossings and were trained to use deescalation tactics to help deal with agitators and law enforcement and could be identified by yellow high visibility vests, and to legal observers, who were tasked with observing any interactions between protesters and law enforcement for any potential civil rights violations.

The protesters proceeded to march down the streets of downtown Grand Rapids. The procession was lead by a group of clergy people, military veterans, and disabled people. Lasting for about an hour, the march occupied intersections and filled the streets with various chants in support of the movement, such as “Hey hey, ho ho, Donald Trump has got to go!” At the intersection of Fulton Street West and Market Avenue South West, the march paused to write defiant messages on the street with chalk. On the various side walks and patios along the route, supporters of the No Kings movement showed up to cheer on the procession and to hold up signs of their own. Some supporters could even be found above the streets from parking garages and even playing as part of a band. No arrests or other such major law enforcement altercations occurred during the march.

When asked about what prompted the organizing of the No Kings protest event on Saturday, Wendy, one of the organizers of the event who is a part of Kent County Indivisible, said “We want to unite the citizens of the city and bring awareness and bring visibility to this cause that we’re working towards.” This theme of unification was accompanied by various calls to action to the participants. One such call to action was that of Rapid Response to ICE, which is an effort by Coseche to perform what they call “resistance work”. This includes documenting ICE agent sightings and accompanying immigrants to regular meetings to prevent them from being detained by ICE. Protesters were encouraged to call the hotline at 616–238–0081 and to sign up for training to work with Rapid Resistance to ICE on Facebook. If you would like to attend a protest yourself, you can find advice on your rights in regards to protesting on https://www.aclumich.org/en/know-your-rights/know-your-rights-when-you-protest.

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Hey Folks, this is my contribution to The Rapidian article ‘Hey, hey, ho, ho, Donald Trump has got to go!’: Thousands take to the street in No Kings protest, festival. Feel free to check it out if you’re interested!