• Question: How do you think you are helping the world?

    Asked by szczech to Adam, Alexander, Aron, Jess, Neil on 12 Mar 2014. This question was also asked by shasha01, wreckitralph, acoyle, mardd001, lilyyw.
    • Photo: Neil Bowles

      Neil Bowles answered on 12 Mar 2014:

      Well, I once worked on the electronics for an Earth weather satellite once and that is pretty important for helping us understand the world’s weather and climate.

      Here’s an odd example: We helped to build an instrument that measures the climate of the planet Mars. Now, you might think that knowing the weather on the planet Mars was interesting but not particularly relevant to the Earth. BUT the same physics that drives the weather on Earth also drives the weather on Mars so we can test our computer models of the Earth’s climate by adapting them to simulate Mars. The we can check if the models agree with the measurements our instrument makes (generally yes). We use the planets like a lab to test our understanding of how the Earth works.

      I’m also working on a NASA mission called OSIRIS-REx that is sending a robot to sample a small asteroid in 2019 called Bennu. By learning more about what these objects are made of, it will help us deflect an asteroid should we need to in the future.

    • Photo: Jessica Marshall

      Jessica Marshall answered on 13 Mar 2014:

      The mission EarthCARE that I’ve been working on is going to look at water content in clouds and aerosols in the Earths atmosphere. This will go round the Earth 16 times a day so will give us so much new information that can help to understand how the Earths atmosphere works, and help weather forecaster and climate change predictions.

    • Photo: Aron Kisdi

      Aron Kisdi answered on 18 Mar 2014:

      I made the software for logging data on the ground calibration rig for BBR which is an instrument that will fly on EarthCARE.

      Also the robots that we are developing will one day be good enough to help us down here on Earth, helping people with their everyday tasks and helping with tasks that can help the environment.

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