"As a kid, I used to tell all my teachers that I would become an astronaut - and now I'm studying galaxies". On space studies, work during the war and the popularization of science among children.

Story by an astrophysicist Olena Kompaniets.

One of my most vivid childhood memories is me sitting on the bed and my father emotionally telling me how the Earth revolves around the Sun, why there is day and night, the Moon and the stars using a lamp and a ball to illustrate it. With my dad, we talked a lot about space – he would find and bring telescopes to show me Saturn and the Moon.

Every year, my dad and I would observe the Perseid meteor show. It was our tradition. I grew up in the village, and there was no light pollution like in big cities – so the overview of stars you get there is simply beyond words. We would also count satellites – we’d go out with a cup of tea, lay the ground and count them. We even had this game to see who could detect more satellites.

As a kid, I used to tell all my teachers that I would become an astronaut. I did not know anything about astrophysicists studying space without travelling there. Since I don’t feel comfortable in confined rooms, I am not going to space, at least for now. But I dream that it will be possible to go on vacation somewhere to the rings of Saturn during my lifetime.

My story perfectly shows how following your dream helps you overcome difficulties. I really wanted to go to university to study astronomy, but I was terrible at math. Therefore, after the ninth grade, I tried to enter physics and mathematics schools. On the second attempt, I did enter the Kryvyi Rih Lyceum. For the first six months, I regularly had bad grades, but having 12 hours of mathematics per week gave results, and gradually I started to understand it.

“I hope the galaxies won’t be upset with me”: on science during the war and space studies.

I currently work at the Main Astronomical Observatory (MAO) of the National Academy of Sciences of Ukraine in the department of extragalactic astronomy and astroinformatics. I am also doing my PhD at the Institute of Physics. When the full-scale war began, my husband and I went to the Military Commissariat. I told them about myself and my job in case they needed these skills. But I was told there was no necessity for me to be there. After that, like many people at the beginning of the war, I felt depressed because I could not help my country. So for several months, I did not conduct any robust scientific activities. Because of this, I’m a little behind with my dissertation, but I hope the galaxies are not upset with me, and I’ll catch up.

I study active nuclei galaxies. At the centre of every galaxy, there is a supermassive black hole, which can be either active or dormant. For instance, in the centre of our galaxy, there is a supermassive dormant black hole – the matter does not fall on it, and we cannot directly see radiation from that matter.

Therefore, in order to understand and prove that there is a supermassive black hole in the centre of our galaxy, astronomers have been observing the movement of nearby stars for more than ten years. Thus, scientists could calculate the mass and establish that we cannot see anything in the galaxy’s centre, but a huge mass is concentrated there.

The nucleus can also be extremely active. In this case, we observe gas jets that are ejected from the supermassive black hole perpendicular to the galaxy’s plane at a distance that may exceed the galaxy’s dimensions. Sometimes supermassive black holes in the centres of galaxies may not be very active — these are weak sources.

I work with my scientific supervisor on isolated galaxies (there is a specific criterion for determining whether a particular galaxy is isolated – it is calculated mathematically). Our global idea is to understand the peculiarities of these isolated galaxies and what affects the nucleus activity.

We are currently studying the X-ray properties of isolated galaxies with active nuclei. I would really like to find out if something at the statistical level distinguishes isolated galaxies in the X-ray range from non-isolated ones. But I faced the problem that these sources in the X-ray range are weak; therefore, few such objects have been observed before. The available data is not enough for statistical analysis. However, I hope that future missions will observe such objects more, make catalogues, etc.

Stories by scientists about science help us to stay curious about the world.

I am deeply convinced that science should be popularized among children. First of all, they are simply interested in it. I can see how curious they are about the world around them. And when they hear about science from scientists, it helps to maintain that interest in discovering the world.

Secondly, children will grow up understanding that our world is fascinating, it should be explored, and some people study it. Not all children will become scientists – some choose politics, and others will end up in sports or education. But they will all carry this curiosity and passion for learning more about our world. And this is crucial – not only for Ukraine but also for the development of the entire human civilization.

Humans will either destroy this world or further evolve – each of us chooses our future path. And I would very much like humanity to choose evolution: to improve medicine and the comfort of life, help each other. I would like us to do everything to build a base on the Moon, a colony on Mars, care about ecology, flora and fauna.

When children listen to scientists’ stories about ecology, the ocean, fish and other animals, they begin to understand how amazing these creatures are and that nature must be protected.

It motivates me to contribute to the popularization of science, especially among children. Because children are our future generation, they will contribute to the development of humanity. Therefore, I would like to believe that people will continue studying space and even travel through it rather than destroying themselves with nuclear weapons.