Maggie Aderin’s dream: To walk by the footprints of Neil Armstrong

Maggie Aderin grew up watching Star Trekdreaming of one day going to space. Today she hasn’t made it into orbit, but she is one of the UK’s best-known scientists, an award-winning astronomer and broadcaster who has worked on the James Webb and Gemini telescopes. She spoke to New scientist The world, the universe and us podcast about writing his autobiography Starchild: My Life Under the Night Skyand how she got to where she is today.

Rowan Hooper: Maggie, you are the host of The sky at nightyou have been president of the British Science Association and are a science teacher in general. You’ve also had a huge impact over the years speaking to tens of thousands of children. While reading Star childit felt like great outreach because, in effect, you’re saying, “Look, I did this and so can you.” Is that part of the incentive behind this?

Maggie Aderin: That’s right. I always say reach for the stars, whatever your stars are. When I was a child, I watched the Clangers And Star Trekand in fact, both physically and metaphorically, I’m reaching for the stars. I want to go there and that has been the driving force of my life. And I think because I had this big crazy dream – I haven’t been to space and I may never do it – but just having this dream has allowed me to do things that I never thought possible. That’s what I like to tell everyone I talk to, so doing it in book form seemed like a great opportunity.

There were a lot of things that jumped out at me in the book, but first, you went to 13 schools in 12 years?

It’s actually funny, because I didn’t really realize that this didn’t happen to other people. This is because my parents separated when I was quite young, so there was continuous custody [issue]oscillating from one to the other.

And when you were 4, your dad asked you which Oxbridge university you were going to go to?

My father saw the power of education. And luckily, I also saw the power of it. He had immigrated from Nigeria and felt that the UK was quite hostile to him when he arrived in the late 1960s.

He had four daughters and he really wanted us to survive and thrive, so education was instilled in us from a young age. For my part, I felt like a little failure. When I started the education system, because I had undiagnosed dyslexia, I was put at the back of the class with the safety scissors and glue. And so I felt that education was the key and yet I wasn’t doing it well.

You also write about how you remember making your own telescopes when you were a teenager and working on the Gemini telescope today. You went to college, but you were the only black woman in your physics class. There is now a Barbie doll made in your image. There’s this common thread that runs through the book, from the things you did when you were younger to what you do now. It all kind of fits together. Like a telescope.

Yes. The pieces fit together. I made my own telescope because I listened The sky at night and Patrick Moore said, “With a telescope you can see that.” » So, I bought a telescope. It wasn’t very good. Then I discovered in an adult education magazine that you could make your own telescope. I was only 14, so I had to get special permission from my teachers and also my father to be able to attend classes.

Tell us about your love for the moon, as that comes through in the book as well.

I am known in my family as a self-proclaimed madman. Self-certification is important! My father used to tell me how the moon was his friend because he grew up in Nigeria and it was about a 12-mile bike ride from his home to his school. When it was dark, the moon guided him because the roads were not lit. Then, growing up in inner city London, you don’t often see the stars as clearly, but the moon shines through. So the moon was my father’s friend, and it was my friend too. Here’s another crazy dream: I want to walk in the footsteps of Neil Armstrong.

You presented at the Royal Institution Christmas Lectures last year and one of the topics was: Is there life beyond Earth? What do you think?

I watched them when I was a kid [and] I always wanted to go to the theater for Christmas lectures. It took me 57 years, but I did it. We started locally [in my lectures]then we looked at our planet. What does it mean to have life here? Next, we looked at our solar system, then went beyond and looked at exoplanets for biosignatures. When I was in college, we talked about the possibility of exoplanets. Now, not only can we detect exoplanets, but we can also analyze their atmospheres spectroscopically.

Were you involved in this on the James Webb Space Telescope?

Yes, [with] a near infrared spectrometer. The James Webb Space Telescope studies thermal energy and infrared energy and transforms our knowledge, just as the Hubble Space Telescope did. [Hubble] gave us a new understanding of the universe, but raised many questions. The James Webb is the next iteration of trying to understand the universe, but with infrared light.

When you give talks in schools, what is the one thing you say to children that has the biggest impact?

One of the things I like to say is that to be a role model you don’t have to be perfect. I tell them I have dyslexia and ADHD, so I can’t spell, I’m often late for things. It’s all part of my neurodiversity, and yet I’m reaching for the stars and it’s allowed me to do things I wouldn’t have thought possible. So you don’t need to think, “I have to be perfect to achieve things.” You can be imperfect and still do things. I always say that each of us has something inside us that burns. When we go out into the world and share that, that’s what makes the world a better place. But the key in life is to discover what sets your heart on fire.

You have stories in the book about being mistaken for a housekeeper or a tea lady, of being underestimated in general. Is it naive of me to ask if this has changed since you graduated?

I hope so. It’s very difficult for me to evaluate. As you move through the system, you enter a more rarefied atmosphere and therefore you are less likely to have this type of interaction, although it still happens occasionally. I think society has changed and is moving in the right direction, but it’s not there yet. And that’s the whole challenge.

Sometimes people feel like I’m the only woman in the room, or the only black person in the room, and so that puts pressure on me. But now I like to turn things around. I see that I am the only one [Black woman] in the room in another way, that the responsibility is not on me, that they need us in the room because science thrives on diversity when many different ideas come together. If you have a monotonous group of people, they all think the same way. You don’t benefit from these revolutionary advances in technology and understanding.

I was wondering, over the course of your career, if you had seen a rise in distrust of science – or if astronomy was immune to it?

I think there’s a distrust of experts, like, “What are you selling? Most of my work is in Earth observation – satellites that observe our planet and help us understand climate change. I would give lectures on climate change and [people would say]”Oh, well, you scientists are just saying that to get your funding.” It seemed like we were inventing things to make sure we got jobs.

In astronomy, I think we transcend that because astronomy is the quest for knowledge. To me, it’s like poetry and art, and it enlivens the spirit. Every culture has looked at the night sky and wondered what’s there, so I think it’s a continuation of that. During covid, I said, “Go out and look up because this transcends our global problems. » They don’t go away. But having that broader perspective really helps.

This is an edited version of an interview on the New Scientist podcast