Galaxy of stars behind our understanding of universe

IHAVE just returned from the first Youth Development Program run by the Association of Universities of Asia and the Pacific for students from many different countries.

I attended, courtesy of the association, to present a keynote address. The subject I chose was “Astronomy is for Everyone”. The program was mainly run at Siam University in Bangkok.

The event attracted students and university professionals from several countries, including India, Malaysia, Singapore, South Africa and the Philippines.

There were several presentations by the students and by others, sessions to widen the knowledge and experience of the students, even including one on perfecting job interview skills.

I was invited to speak because of the unifying nature of astronomy. I often reflect on the fact that we share the sky (although not exactly the same stars all the time), and taking a look at what we are achieving in space and astronomy research tends to bring people together.

When preparing presentations such as this, I find that there is a multitude of examples from around the world to show how we can all be involved in astronomy.

One illustration of this from relatively recent times was nine-year-old American boy Michael Puzio, who won a competition to name the asteroid Bennu, the name he suggested being that of a bird in Egyptian mythology.

My most memorable example is Venetia Burney, who, as an 11-year-old, suggested the name for Pluto. One morning in 1930, she was having breakfast with her grandfather when he told her there was a story in The London Times about the discovery of a new planet.

Having studied many of the mythological stories of the Greeks and Romans, Venetia said to her grandfather: “Why not call it Pluto?” Her logic was that the new planet was very far from the sun, in a region that she felt was “dark and gloomy” (as she told me in 2008), and that Pluto was the god of the underworld in Greek mythology.

Indeed, women have played a quite significant role in astronomy. Caroline Herschel, the sister of Uranus discoverer William Herschel, was an astronomer in her own right. As well, anyone who has seen the wonderful movie Hidden Figures will know the story of the AfricanAmerican women, especially Katherine Johnson, who did so much work on orbital mechanics for NASA, making possible the flights of early US astronauts.

I was also very pleased to make a mention of Australian undergraduate student Amelie Read, who is already performing research on our Milky Way galaxy.

She is of similar age to many of the attendees at the conference and her work provided a wonderful inspiration to them, showing the importance of younger people getting involved in research and being able to make important contributions.

Because the program was in Thailand, it was also important to draw attention to the wonderful progress in astronomy in that country, in both research and education. In some recent articles, I have mentioned Thai involvement in this subject.

Perhaps the most famous aspect of this is that King Mongkut (King Rama IV) became “the Father of Thai Science” after his observation of the total solar eclipse of August 18, 1868, in southern Thailand. For many years, the week containing August 18 has been Science Week in Thailand.

I was pleased to mention Tasmania, too, in my talk. The work of Grote Reber, near Bothwell, where he built the world’s largest filled-aperture radio telescope in the 1960s, is famous.

I have sometimes called him “the maverick astronomer” for the work he did both in Tasmania and as a young man in the 1930s in the US when he effectively became the world’s first radio astronomer.

Young people are our future, and enthusing them in science is, I feel, important for them and for the world.

It’s certainly a rewarding experience for me, and we can also have a lot of fun in astronomy.

Did you know that asteroid number 3142 is called Kilopi? You may like to think about that as you read the Saturday Mercury today!