Note: This post was written at a later date, but I thought it fitting to add it at the actual date it happened.

When I was 6 years old we were driving back from the beach on a warm Sunday night in January. My parents sat in the front, while my grandmother sat with me in the back. Suddenly she leaned over and said “look! Orion!”. I had no idea what Orion was or how it looked, so she took the time to explain it to me. “It’s really quite easy once you see the three stars – that’s the belt and the bright 4 stars around it, well, that’s the frame.” I remember intently staring at it through the car window on that warm winter night. Seeing my fascination, my grandmother suggested the following: “I see you are enjoying watching the sky. Tell you what, when you look up – try to find Orion. When you do, you could think of me, I will do the same!” You see, she didn’t live near me, she was far away in Germany, I saw her once maybe every 2 years. I intently nodded. This seemed like such a cool thing, like it brought me closer, because we shared the same sky.

Over the next years she would ask me if I still looked at Orion. Not often, maybe once every 5 years or so and not lately. I always answered in the positive and that was enough for her. Little did she know that Orion became the support, the stake for my further study of the sky. I always had a long vacation in the winter so it was from Orion that I expanded out discovering the sky – upwards (westwards) towards the triangle and that smudge (Taurus and the Pleiades), downwards towards that bright star (Sirius in Canis Major) and the two bright stars that followed (Castor and Pollux in Gemini), left towards that round grouping on stars (Auriga) and that strange W (Cassiopeia). When I got my first telescope, Orion’s nebula was the first thing I tried to see. When I started observing with a CCD camera in the back of a telescope and processing images with IRAF, Orion’s nebula and the trapezium was also the first thing I recorded. Sadly, I can’t seem to find the fits file or the image I made of it anymore. Anyway, even my internet moniker, “bellatrix” derived from the fact that I looked at Orion first for everything astronomical. It was almost a sort of crux when looking at the sky – Orion, then the rest. And often, I thought of my grandmother.

Yesterday, when walking home, I showed my daughter Orion. The belt, Betelgeuse, Rigel, Bellatrix, the nebula. Of course, she was more interested in Jupiter nearby, but she acknowledged my enthusiasm. And I thought of my grandmother again. She died very early this morning. I don’t know if we will still be sharing the same sky, but I will keep on staring at it, thinking of her and the love of astronomy she unwittingly instilled in me and kept on fostering in me. I miss her so much already!

I was inspired to write this post by a recent Huffpost article by Carlos Moreno  on “Hollywood’s War on Science“. In the article, the author discusses that Hollywood mostly portrays scientists in a negative light, as mad, obsessed with power. And if the scientist is not outright EVIL, they are mostly quirky, anti-social or arrogant. Furthermore, science in general gets portrayed as something to be feared portraying what can go wrong in scientific experiments. The base of these movies and TV shows is often the fear of the unknown and sadly stands at odds with the demands of today’s world of technological and scientific literacy.

This is just something I just don’t undestand. Something must have gone awry at some point that many adults today shut down when it comes to understanding the world around us. My daughter is naturally curious how the stuff she uses everyday works and she loves playing “the why game” – answering each answer with “why?” (my second hit on google is “how to kill the why game“; so sad). But I’ve often heard the “oh, that’s a black box for me” with something technical around adults. Most of the stuff is not rocket science, the basic principles are easily accessible, but they don’t bother.

I’ve got plenty of cool counterexamples. One time, while still an undergrad, a loud party of non-scientists turned into a conversation in a circle when I began explaining the basic principles of flight, the original television, photocopier and the computer. The people were asking questions, generally fascinated to think behind the scenes of the things we use everyday. But sadly, I know that many of those people were happy that night, but never thought about that stuff again. The same probably goes for all those conversations I strike up on busses, airplanes, doctor’s offices, etc. People are fascinated with astronomy, when I talk to them about the news of the week (did you hear a Supernova exploded in a nearby galaxy and why that is exciting?). But do they take that excitement beyond their conversation with me, the strange scientist?

I don’t know, but I keep on hoping, keep on talking, keep on trying to excite without prejudice that it is wasted time. But most importantly, keep exciting kids – our world is nice as a magical place, but it is much more empowering to really understand it! I don’t think it’s futile, keep leading by example and honestly portray what it is that scientist do and why we generally are so interested and curious of the phenomena happening around us (first understanding them and then explaining them).

And at nights I will keep on working on my secret machine to take over the world! Har har har…