Meet the astronomers. See where they work. Know what they know.

The Project:

The Cosmic Diary is not just about astronomy. It's more about what it is like to be an astronomer.

The Cosmic Dairy aims to put a human face on astronomy: professional scientists will blog in text and images about their lives, families, friends, hobbies and interests, as well as their work, their latest research findings and the challenges that face them. The bloggers represent a vibrant cross-section of female and male working astronomers from around the world, coming from five different continents. Outside the observatories, labs and offices they are musicians, mothers, photographers, athletes, amateur astronomers. At work, they are managers, observers, graduate students, grant proposers, instrument builders and data analysts.

Throughout this project, all the bloggers will be asked to explain one particular aspect of their work to the public. In a true exercise of science communication, these scientists will use easy-to-understand language to translate the nuts and bolts of their scientific research into a popular science article. This will be their challenge.

Task Group:

Mariana Barrosa (Portugal, ESO ePOD)
Nuno Marques (Portugal, Web Developer)
Lee Pullen (UK, Freelance Science Communicator)
André Roquette (Portugal, ESO ePOD)

Jack Oughton (UK, Freelance Science Communicator)
Alice Enevoldsen (USA, Pacific Science Center)
Alberto Krone Martins (Brazil, Uni. S. Paulo / Uni. Bordeaux)
Kevin Govender (South Africa, S. A. A. O.)
Avivah Yamani (Indonesia, Rigel Kentaurus)
Henri Boffin (Belgium, ESO ePOD)

Ana Ines Gomez De Castro

46 years old, born in Vitoria, Spain
Place of work: Fac. de CC. Matematicas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid
Website: http://cosmicdiary.org/blogs/ana_ines_castro/

We are all familiar with planets — after all, we live on one! But how planetary systems are created was a conundrum for scientists, and many of the greatest minds have puzzled over the answer. Now we are in a position to describe the incredible processes that led to planets such as our own Earth being formed.

Seiichi Sakamoto

44 years old, born in Tokyo, Japan
Place of work: Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
Website: http://cosmicdiary.org/blogs/jaxa/seiichi_sakamoto/

Professional observatories are our windows to the Universe, but where to build these colossal structures is a science in itself. In this feature article, Seiichi Sakamoto talks through the process of site selection, using the high-tech Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array as a case study.

Nando Patat

43 years old, born in Italy
Place of work: ESO, Garching, Germany
Website: http://www.cosmicdiary.org/blogs/eso/nando_patat/

This article is about one of the most energetic events in the known Universe: Type Ia Supernovae. They are thought to occur when an extremely dense, small and hot star called a white dwarf gathers material from a companion in a binary system. Its greediness for matter comes at a price, though: when the white dwarf reaches a critical stage it undergoes a violent thermonuclear explosion which converts the star into one of the brightest sources in the sky, outshining a whole galaxy. Yet, the exact nature of the binary system is still unclear...

Franck Marchis

36 years old, born in France
Place of work: SETI Institute and University of California at Berkeley
Website: http://www.cosmicdiary.org/blogs/nasa/franck_marchis/

The largest recently built telescopes are equipped with primary mirrors 8 to 10 metres in diameter, but surprisingly they do not provide images with quality better than a 20 cm telescope. The blurring effect caused by the Earth's atmosphere limits the image quality, and the only way to overcome this is to correct in real time using a complex instrument called Adaptive Optics (AO). The first AO systems were tested on 4m-class telescopes in Chile and the US in the 1990s, and today this technique is commonly available to take advantage of big telescopes. Franck has been using these AO systems to study the diversity of our Solar System, focusing his activity on monitoring volcanic activity on Io, a moon of Jupiter, searching for multiple asteroid systems, and studying Jupiter's atmosphere.