• Question: In what way wil your research benifit people?

    Asked by anon-226448 to Sameed, Jose, joannabarstow, Heidi, Freya, Chris on 20 Nov 2019. This question was also asked by anon-226463.
    • Photo: Heidi

      Heidi answered on 20 Nov 2019:

      My research is helping us to understand more about space, stars, and the universe, push the boundaries of knowledge, and help inspire young people into science, but sometimes that’s hard to quantify in a day-to-day sort of benefit.
      So instead, a lot of astronomy research like mine has benefits we call “spin-offs”, where the technology or software developed for astronomy has useful effects down on earth. A good example of that is an astronomy research group in Liverpool who used astronomy machine learning software combined with drone technology to track endangered animals and reduce poaching!
      So even if direct benefits are hard to think of, there’s always indirect benefits to life on Earth. 🙂

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