photographist

“The boundaries of our universe are being pushed back unceasingly which emphasizes the mind-blowing side of astrophysics. When I was a teenager, I had the ambition to become an astronaut, but felt that it was not a woman’s job. Finally I got a permanent position in astrophysics as a professor. It allows me to explore Space while keeping my feet on the ground… The research topic is the Sun, our nearest star, the one best understood, considered as the reference for the same kind of stars. The Sun’s activity follows an eleven year cycle. At the peak of its periodic activity, the solar surface exhibits numerous active regions from which energetic particles are ejected into the interplanetary medium. Those particles may interact with the terrestrial environment, modify the orbits of the telecommunications satellites, induce currents which corrode pipelines or even provoke failures in power transmission networks.

One of my lab’s goals is to build instruments which will be implemented on spacecraft. We develop imagers, spectrometers, particle analyzers and so on. We combine the data coming from different instruments in order to derive for example the temperature, density and magnetic field components from measurements performed on a given solar structure. Observing the Sun from Earth, during a total solar eclipse brings continuous and direct measurements of our star. I remember my first eclipse observation in a small village lost in the northern Chilean mountains. At the time of the Sun disappearance, the crowd clamored for a few seconds. A deep silence followed and lasted until the Sun came back amid applause. I was trembling not only because, deprived of light, it was cold at high altitude, but also because this moment was full of emotion.”

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