Space!

 Here we see some happy little galaxies, and by happy little galaxies I mean two unimaginably huge masses ripping each other apart with the force of gravity.

SPACE.

I've been obsessed with outer space for a long time. When I was little I would get books from the library about the Voyager missions and all of the cool things that Hubble was discovering. . Exoplanets (planets around other stars) were discovered in my childhood. Mars was being explored with rovers and the Huygens probe touched down on Titan, one of Saturn's many moons. What an exciting time to be alive!

One of my favorite abilities of Hubble: Looking into deep space and seeing billions of galaxies. This one in the middle has literally warped light around itself which is why you see stretched-out galaxies around it. 

I didn't know back then I'd be working for NASA. I ranged through everything from wanting to be a dentist to wanting to be a cartoonist, but I did always enjoy my science classes. In graduate school I had an opportunity to take classes in Planetary Science and Stellar Astrophysics as electives, and I still use the random facts I picked up from those classes when I go to visit students at schools and outreach events.

Dust devil on Mars

I think my favorite thing is sharing the excitement of space with other people. I like talking to elementary school students best because they are always so amazed at everything! Did you know that the entire solar system started out as dust? How big do you think Jupiter is? You could fit 11 Earths across its middle! There are moons that have OCEANS under their icy crusts!!! THIS IS SO COOL YOU GUYS. A sun exploding can outshine its entire galaxy! And there are billions of stars in each galaxy.

So yeah, something as vast and extreme as space is something I'm going to geek out about a lot. I'm so excited to be building the things that go explore it!

The famous "Pillars of Creation" by Hubble. A nebula cloud full of baby stars.