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The space genius who needed a guide to life on earth

How a bereaved astrophysicist was helped by three pages of instructions from her late husband, as she adjusted to the new world around her.

Sara Seager is an MIT astrophysicist. She has made it her life’s work to peer into the spaces around stars – looking for exoplanets outside our solar system, hoping to find the one-in-a-billion world that is enough like ours to sustain life. But after the unexpected death of her husband, Sara struggled with some of the new day-to-day tasks that she had to take on. She tells Jo Fidgen the story of how a three-page guide written by her late husband helped her to navigate life on earth, while she continued making ground-breaking discoveries in the skies.

Wanda Díaz-Merced is an astrophysicist from Puerto Rico. Unlike most people in her field Wanda is blind, but she has found a way to collect and study data from the stars and space. She uses a technique called sonification which changes visual data into sound waves, allowing her to hear the sounds of the stars.

Picture: Sara Seager
Credit: Justin Knight

Available now

44 minutes

Last on

Tue 20 Oct 2020 02:06GMT

Broadcasts

  • Mon 19 Oct 2020 11:06GMT
  • Mon 19 Oct 2020 17:06GMT
  • Tue 20 Oct 2020 02:06GMT

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