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Australia’s first female astronaut speaks to local students at SKALow site
from Contact 16
BY SEBASTIAN NEUWEILER (SKAO)
It’s not every day you get to meet an astronaut. Nor is it every day you get the chance to visit one of the world’s biggest radio astronomy telescopes. Students from outback Western Australia recently had the chance to do both.
In August, students from Mullewa District High School, many of them Wajarri Yamaji, boarded a bus to make the three-hour journey to Inyarrimanha Ilgari Bundara, the CSIRO Murchison Radio-astronomy Observatory, the site of the SKALow telescope.
Waiting for them was Australia’s first female astronaut, Katherine Bennell-Pegg, who had travelled to Wajarri Yamaji Country to see the SKA-Low telescope up close and meet with the local students.
Katherine, who is also the first person to train as an astronaut under the Australian flag, recently completed a 13-month training programme in Germany at the European Space Agency to become a qualified astronaut.
After more than a decade of study, she is now awaiting a mission to enter outer space.
Bennell-Pegg said it was special to witness the students enjoy their time learning more about the telescope in their backyard.
“To visit a telescope at their age, I felt I shared that with them,” she said.
“I hope that being here among all of the scientists, engineers and technicians inspires them, just like I was inspired when I was a kid.”
Students also had the chance to speak to the team of SKALow field technicians, who are assembling and installing the antennas that make up the telescope, learning how the equipment collects data from space.
SKA-Low Field Technician Emily Goddard said it was fantastic to have the students on site.
“They brought a level of excitement to the site that we don’t normally get. A few even put their hands up to help build a couple of antennas,” she said.
“Our team were asked some great questions, including ‘what are we looking for?’, ‘are aliens real?’ and the one that knocked me off my feet, ‘what is science?’
“With questions like that, I hope to see these students working on this project in years to come.”
The students’ visit was made possible by the Wajarri Yamaji Aboriginal Corporation, as part of the programme of school visits to the observatory site under the Indigenous Land Use Agreement between Wajarri, the Australian Government and CSIRO.
As part of her trip to the Observatory, Katherine also visited CSIRO’s ASKAP radio telescope and the Curtin Universityled Murchison Widefield Array, two of the SKA precursor telescopes.
