Stargaze down under with Space Scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock
‘In Australia, the sky is vivid’
Claire Webb - 14 September 2019
Sky at Night presenter Maggie Aderin-Pocock has a new way to relax at home in Guildford. At the end of a day, she logs on to stonehengeskyscape.co.uk, a new website from English Heritage. During the day, a camera projects a live feed of the sky above the standing stones in Stonehenge; after dark, it’s replaced by a computer-generated image that displays the locations of stars and visible planets. “I treat it as therapy,” she says. “There’s something about watching the sky – all the chaos of life dies away.”
As a child, Aderin-Pocock’s favourite TV programme was Clangers, and she has been obsessed with space ever since. “When I was three, my dream was to go to the moon to see where Neil Armstrong wandered around and then visit the Clangers,” she recalls. “Part of my dream has come true, because they made a Clangers episode to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the moon landings and I’m in it – they made a little Maggie. It brought tears to my eyes.”
When she was growing up in north London, she also longed to travel on a plane. “One of my crazy ideas was to wind down the window, grab some cloud, put it in a plastic bag and take it home! My family didn’t really go on holidays, but my father travelled a lot with work. He’d send us postcards and I’d think, ‘I want to see that.’ I didn’t travel much until I went to university and then work. I tried to see as much of the world as possible.”
Her first job took her to Woomera in the Australian Outback, where the UK had a rocketlaunching programme. She was mesmerised by the twinkling night sky above the dusty military base. Australia remains her favourite place to see the stars. “The first time my husband saw Saturn’s rings was on a tour of Uluru. We did some amazing stargazing in the Daintree Rainforest. If you find a clearing, you’ve got all the sounds of the forest and an astonishing night sky – the Milky Way is like a path of milk spilt over the sky. It’s just so vivid.
Nowadays, she gives lectures across the globe, taking her nine-year-old daughter, Lauren, with her whenever possible. She also gives talks to schoolchildren and has just published a children’s book – a fun guide to the solar system – that she hopes will inspire more girls to follow in her footsteps. “Space science is a pretty cool job. The book is to try and engage everybody and show them space is fun.”
As for the other part of her childhood dream, she predicts that space tourism will be affordable within 20 years. Will she be first in line for a seat on a spaceflight? “I have to wait until my daughter is 18 and can take care of herself. Give it another ten years and, yes – it’s the thing that’s driven me my whole life.”
Sky at Night presenter Maggie Aderin-Pocock has a new way to relax at home in Guildford. At the end of a day, she logs on to stonehengeskyscape.co.uk, a new website from English Heritage. During the day, a camera projects a live feed of the sky above the standing stones in Stonehenge; after dark, it’s replaced by a computer-generated image that displays the locations of stars and visible planets. “I treat it as therapy,” she says. “There’s something about watching the sky – all the chaos of life dies away.”
As a child, Aderin-Pocock’s favourite TV programme was Clangers, and she has been obsessed with space ever since. “When I was three, my dream was to go to the moon to see where Neil Armstrong wandered around and then visit the Clangers,” she recalls. “Part of my dream has come true, because they made a Clangers episode to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the moon landings and I’m in it – they made a little Maggie. It brought tears to my eyes.”
When she was growing up in north London, she also longed to travel on a plane. “One of my crazy ideas was to wind down the window, grab some cloud, put it in a plastic bag and take it home! My family didn’t really go on holidays, but my father travelled a lot with work. He’d send us postcards and I’d think, ‘I want to see that.’ I didn’t travel much until I went to university and then work. I tried to see as much of the world as possible.”
Her first job took her to Woomera in the Australian Outback, where the UK had a rocketlaunching programme. She was mesmerised by the twinkling night sky above the dusty military base. Australia remains her favourite place to see the stars. “The first time my husband saw Saturn’s rings was on a tour of Uluru. We did some amazing stargazing in the Daintree Rainforest. If you find a clearing, you’ve got all the sounds of the forest and an astonishing night sky – the Milky Way is like a path of milk spilt over the sky. It’s just so vivid.
Nowadays, she gives lectures across the globe, taking her nine-year-old daughter, Lauren, with her whenever possible. She also gives talks to schoolchildren and has just published a children’s book – a fun guide to the solar system – that she hopes will inspire more girls to follow in her footsteps. “Space science is a pretty cool job. The book is to try and engage everybody and show them space is fun.”
As for the other part of her childhood dream, she predicts that space tourism will be affordable within 20 years. Will she be first in line for a seat on a spaceflight? “I have to wait until my daughter is 18 and can take care of herself. Give it another ten years and, yes – it’s the thing that’s driven me my whole life.”