Carol Mundell, astronomer: “Half the known Universe is over 1,000 degrees and we don’t know why” | The science

Astronomer Carol Mundell (Sheffield, UK, 54) has a film CV: expert on supermassive black holes, scientific adviser to the British government, head of her country’s Science Council, and now head of science at the European Space Agency (ESA).

This year alone, Mundell’s agency will manage more than 600 million euros with the goal of taking humanity to places where it has never been. His wallet has…

Astronomer Carol Mundell (Sheffield, UK, 54) has a film CV: expert on supermassive black holes, scientific adviser to the British government, head of her country’s Science Council, and now head of science at the European Space Agency (ESA).

This year alone, Mundell’s agency will manage more than 600 million euros with the goal of taking humanity to places where it has never been. His portfolio includes launching ships that will allow us to better understand the impact of solar storms, the scourge of which is growing, a telescope to discover Earth’s twin planets beyond our solar system, another telescope that will observe their atmospheres and make the first climate predictions on those worlds; and the ship that will intercept the comet for the first time. These are historical missions that push technology to its limits.

Mundell credits her interest in science with beginning at age five, when her mother gave her a dress with mathematical symbols on it that she instinctively wanted to decipher as if they were hieroglyphs. Physics and mathematics were the language of science, and Mundell worked on it in the 1990s, trying to understand what happens when black holes “suffer from indigestion.” Their work helped demonstrate that every galaxy contains one of these voracious monsters, which harbor a huge mystery: do they create galaxies, or vice versa?

Mundell hosts EL PAÍS at ESA’s idyllic space center in Villafranca del Castillo, on the outskirts of Madrid, a complex isolated from radio interference where huge antennas tower, receiving signals from ships flying in space millions of kilometers from Earth. directed by Mundell. In this interview, the scientist speaks with equal passion and clarity about science, politics, masculinity, space exploration and scientific integrity.

Ask. She was a scientific adviser to the British government during the Boris Johnson era. Do you think political leaders respect science and follow it in their decisions?

Reply. It was a very inspiring period. This was the position of a civil servant of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. My goal was to use science as a tool of diplomacy and friendship with other countries to support government goals. He has also advised during emergencies, especially during the pandemic. We provided the facts and the politicians made the decisions. In general, our advice was heeded. At that moment we clearly saw the purpose of investing in basic science. It’s not possible to create a vaccine overnight, it takes generations of work, and it was great to share the information we had with other countries.

Science helps us avoid dogma when political positions are entrenched

TO. Is this still happening in times of Brexit, wars in Ukraine and Gaza?

R. In times of conflict, science diplomacy is most important because that is when we remember who our friends are and think about the kind of world we want to build. Science helps us avoid dogma when political positions are entrenched. It is the engine of human progress and helps make better political decisions. I have advised on Brexit as well as other security, defence, development, space and computer strategy issues.

TO. Let’s talk about science. What is the biggest question about the universe that can be answered through space exploration?

R. We ask ourselves the biggest questions about the nature of the universe. How did it all start, are we alone, is there life beyond our planet, what is the future of planet Earth? These are the existential questions that have always haunted us. For example, we completed the Euclid mission to study dark matter and energy because we know that the expansion of the universe is accelerating and we don’t know why. Space is the only possible place where certain questions can be answered, such as the most powerful light in the Universe, which is created by black holes. The fact that we can launch telescopes into space and measure these phenomena with extreme precision makes these great times for humanity.

TO. Talk about existential questions. Do you think we will discover that we are not alone?

R. I think we should do something more often: stop our crazy lives for a moment and think that we live on this little blue planet, at the right distance from the Sun; that we are intelligent beings living at a ridiculous fraction of the age of the cosmos, which is 13.7 billion years. It’s amazing that we are also able to conceptualize the universe, discover the mathematics that describes it, ask important questions, and develop the technologies needed to answer them. It’s unique.

TO. How is ESA going to address all the issues you mentioned?

R. We will launch many unique missions over the next 12 years. Coming out in 2025 smile study the interaction of the solar wind with the Earth’s magnetosphere. Many of your readers have seen the amazing northern lights caused by the latest solar storm, and this mission will help us better understand the effects of future storms. We also have two missions planned to search for exoplanets. Dish It will have 26 cameras that will work as a single eye to study planets like Earth and stars like the Sun. And then we’ll launch. Ariel, which will allow us to study the atmospheres of 1000 exoplanets, and we will be able to study the climate on exoplanets, which is absolutely amazing. And since we have little space left, next to Ariel We’ll launch another probe that will stay in space for a couple of years, waiting to chase down a pristine comet that’s ideal for understanding the origins of our solar system, and we’ll launch two smaller probes to study it. We also have Imaginewhich will study Venus entirely, from its atmosphere to its core. Lisa This will be the first laser interferometer in history to go into space. We are talking about three identical ships, separated by 2.5 million kilometers, which must detect gravitational waves in space-time, measured in millionths of a meter, generated by two supermassive black holes when they collide. Also we have New Athena, a mission in development to be launched in the 2030s that would reveal a great mystery. We only know 5% of the Universe, but 50% of this fraction is gas with a temperature of over 1000 degrees Celsius, and we don’t know why. This is an unprecedented level of rocket science.

TO. In 2017, you spoke out against sexist harassment and aggression in the academic world. Do you think the problem has been solved?

R. No, it still exists. A few days ago, the Royal Astronomical Society of the United Kingdom published a report that makes it clear that these problems remain unresolved. No matter who you are, you have the right to work in a safe, physically and mentally healthy environment. And this is especially true in high-pressure fields like science. The space sector remains dominated by men and their male vision. But there are also women who lead brilliantly. Women need to look out for each other at every level of the career ladder, but it’s also vital that men help us make the field more open and inclusive.

TO. Until 2023, she was president of the United Kingdom’s Research Council, representing 350,000 scientists. In one of his speeches, he warned how easy it is to lose the prestige of science. Do you think this prestige has been recently threatened by fraudulent activities such as dual membership or date manipulation?

R. During my presidency, I wanted to open a public debate about scientific integrity and its impact on public perception of science. Most people hold us in high esteem because we have earned it by creating a sound scientific system. But this depends on whether each scientist can be trusted. When it comes to dating, there is no perfect system, and this is the system that needs to be used wisely and with common sense. One of our most successful missions was Rosetta, which made amazing discoveries and brought amazing technology. But it is a small scientific community, so the number of citations for Rosetta’s research is not very high compared to other fields such as cosmology. Thus, ESA has its own methodology for assessing the impact and quality of our science. We can’t blindly rely on what the numbers say, that wouldn’t be very scientific. We must be very careful about the integrity, reliability and verification of science. We have to assume that there will always be a portion of rogue scientists who will try to take advantage of the system, but it is a small portion if we remain vigilant.

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