What does an astrophysicist do?

Illatofemminiledellastronomia

Have you ever wondered what an astrophysicist will do? How do you imagine my day? Watching* or sunbathing all day long? Or to turn gray in front of a screen? Well, to give you a taste of my life, I'll tell you what I'll be doing next week!

From Monday to Wednesday, in the afternoons, I will be busy following the meeting of the Solar Orbiter "Science Working Team", in which the observation methods for the future observation windows of the instruments on board will be decided. Before the pandemic, these meetings were held in person at the headquarters Noordwijk dell’ESA ma, da due anni a questa parte, ce le godiamo seduti in ufficio o in smart working davanti al pc. Purtroppo.

For Solar Orbiter and, in particular, for Metis, the tool I work on, I also have other meetings scheduled with the team and this week it's my turn to plan what we will observe from March 2nd for about a week. The deadline for delivery of the observation plan to ESA is set for February 16, i.e. two weeks before the actual observations.

Scattered here and there during the week, I also have three presentations made by other colleagues that I am interested in following and a short meeting. All, strictly and unfortunately, sitting at my desk.

On Friday, on the occasion of the International Day of Women and Girls in Science, I will be present from 6pm in the Osservatorio , where I and a colleague will meet anyone interested in our work. If you haven't booked, this is the link to do so: The feminine side of astronomy! An in-person event will do us great! At the end of the meeting there will be observations of the sky with the telescope together with the UAN.
Four meetings are scheduled and, if you are not able to be there on February 11th with me, you will be able to meet my colleagues on the other scheduled dates.

Also on Friday, in the morning, I will instead meet a class from the city of Rome, online, to talk about my experience as a woman scientist. This event is organized by the communications office of EST, the solar telescope that will be built in La Palma.

To all this, we add, in our free time, the scientific work of analyzing the images arriving from Metis and extracting the famous "science" from them!

*please never look directly at the Sun, neither with your eyes nor even worse with telescopes, but always using special filters.

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2 risposte

  1. Grande Clementina, tu sei molto fortunata perché fai un lavoro che ti appassiona veramente tantissimo e si avverte. Congratulazioni e grazie per tutto.
    Antonio

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