Picture courtesy of the NASA Visible Earth project (http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?4668)

The Hawaiian Islands are beautiful, whether you're visiting them on Earth or seeing them from space. Mike Tripicco was lucky enough to live in Hawaii for several years, while he attended graduate school at the University of Hawaii. The University hosts world-renowned telescopes atop the high mountain of Mauna Kea, located on the largest of the Hawaiian Islands. (Lower right in the image, above.)

Mike used telescopes on Mauna Kea for his graduate school research. "I consider the summit of Mauna Kea to be one of the most awesome places on Earth," says Mike, "and I'm thrilled to have had the opportunity to live in Hawaii for five years."

To see pictures of the Mauna Kea observatories, and learn more about Mike's work there, return to Mike's Featured Scientist article.