INSIDE THE SKY AT NIGHT

Georgina Dransfield visited Antarctica to search for exoplanets and filmed her time there for the April episode of The Sky at Night

- Georgina Dransfield

АIthough it might seem unlikely, jealousy can be a healthy motivator. In my previous life as a secondary school physics teacher, I was often jealous of my students. They'd attend my lunchtime Exoplanets Club, or come to my Astronomy Olympiad prep sessions, or even spend weekends with me at the UK Space Design Competition. Watching them get so excited about space science, and seeing how it was shaping their ambitions and future plans, was really what led me to say, "I want to do that too".

So that is what I did and four years later, I was celebrating the arrival of 2022 at one of the world's most inhospitable places: Antarctica's Dome C. Why was I there? My task was to install some software on a telescope's computer at a remote research station.