Imperial and NASA inspire school students with stories of space

‘Women in Space Science, Technology, and Engineering’ was aimed at students in Years 10 to 12 who are already studying, or considering studying  A Level physics, particularly female students who are underrepresented in the subject.

Organised in the Department of Physics by its Outreach Office and Senior Teaching Fellow, Dr Mark Richards, the event was fully booked within days by schools from across the Greater London area.

High profile female space scientists and engineers, including Nagin Cox from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Imperial's Professor Michele Dougherty talked about their careers and gave a glimpse of what it’s like to explore Mars and Saturn.

Nagin, a spacecraft systems engineer, discussed her work as part of the team responsible for the robotic rover Curiosity. The $2.5bn car-sized rover touched down on Mars in August last year. After earlier rovers found evidence of water on the red planet in its  past, Nagin explained that Curiosity will try to determine whether Mars could have supported life. The mission will also prepare for possible human exploration in the future. “That’s about as exciting as it gets for a robotic mission”, said Nagin.

She also talked through a typical day at NASA, explaining that because Mars has a different time to Earth, she comes in to work 40 minutes later every day to ensure she is on the same time as Curiosity. She also shed light on why she was visiting the UK: “at this particular time the sun is in between Earth and Mars which means we can’t command the rover right now. Whilst Curiosity is on ‘holiday’, I can go out and share our work.”

Professor Dougherty gave a presentation on the Cassini spacecraft mission to Saturn, discussing her interest in the planet as having stemmed from first glimpsing it from her father’s telescope aged 12.  

She described how her career now allows her to study Saturn with far more powerful tools as the Principal Investigator of Cassini’s magnetometer instrument. The instrument, which reached Saturn in 2004, has collected information on the planet’s giant rings, the magnetic field environments surrounding it and the planet’s many moons.

The audience learnt that the work of Professor Dougherty and her team led to major advances in our understanding of the physics of the Saturn system, including the discovery of water on one of Saturn’s moons, Enceladus. As a result, new areas of planetary research are being developed, including plans for new spacecraft missions to Saturn’s moons.

Year 12 student, Elizabeth, from St Michael’s School in Finchley was one of 200 students who came to the event. “I especially liked Michele’s talk about how magnetometry could be used to try and discover and learn things about planets and moons,” When asked if she might consider a future career in physics, she said: “I didn’t realise there was quite so much still to discover in space. There are so many different ways we can go into it so there’s a lot more options to consider," she added.

As well as insights from space scientists and engineers, the audience saw some live demonstrations from Dr Simon Foster, Physics Outreach Officer, including making fuel.

Head of the Department of Physics, Professor Joanna Haigh, closed the event by thanking everyone for coming, adding that she hoped to see the students back at Imperial – possibly as undergraduates in the not too distant future.

The event was supported by the Embassy of the United States of America, which also launched a space competition where the winning entrant will receive an all expenses paid trip to the Space Academy or Advanced Space Academy in Huntsville, Alabama, USA during August.