On a Mission
Ahead of her TAC Talk this month, astrophysicist Elizabeth Tasker explains why she’s determined to share the science of space with as many people as possible.
There was no childhood epiphany for Elizabeth Tasker. No earth-shattering experience that set her on the road to a life in science. Sure, she recalls “demanding” that her father buy her a poster of the giant, ringed planet Saturn after a visit to the London Planetarium at 9 years old. But it was hardly a lightning-bolt moment.
“I’d really like to avoid implications there was something ‘key’ at a young age that meant I was set to go into astrophysics. There really was not,” Tasker says. “I think I was just interested in science and gradually pursued it.”
That interest has taken her across the world as a researcher in astrophysics. Now, as an associate professor in the division of solar sciences at the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA), she divides her time between analyzing star and planet formation and communicating the research and discoveries of the agency.
“If you’ve done a space mission and you haven’t awed people, then you’ve missed the main point of the space mission,” Tasker says. “Give people something to wonder about and seek answers to and invite them to come along with you for the journey. People don’t necessarily go on to become planetary scientists, but if they are interested in science and space, they might become doctors and surgeons and everything else we need.”
Hired by JAXA in 2016, Tasker, 40, says her days are filled with programming, setting up computer simulations, working on research papers and sharing the agency’s work in English through articles, blog posts and videos. This, she stresses, is a fundamental part of modern science.
“Not doing the communication is like making the world’s best cake and then not bothering to ice it,” says Tasker. “Space missions are done by large teams of people who are the product of a community. It’s everyone’s achievement. People have contributed not just in tax dollars, but in an environment and culture that allowed us to do something as daring as land on an asteroid and bring back samples. That’s not one person’s dream. That’s a global society that allows us to do that. We should all be proud of it, and therefore we should all know about it.”
Image: illustration of exoplanet Kepler-20e
That audacious undertaking was JAXA’s successful, six-year mission to an asteroid named Ryugu. After landing on the diamond-shaped space rock, the Hayabusa2 spacecraft collected rock samples then returned those in a capsule to Earth last year.
If things had gone according to her initial plan, however, Tasker might well be treating animals today rather than discussing space probes and asteroids. But an aptitude test at 13 years old led to a change of ambition.
“School officials looked at the results and said, ‘So you want to be a veterinarian, but really all you do is read and study about astronomy and physics?’” says Tasker with a laugh. “Eventually, I saw their point.”
After studying theoretical physics at Britain’s Durham University, she earned a doctoral degree in computational astrophysics from the University of Oxford in 2006. Tasker’s postdoctoral research then took her to Canada, the United States and now Japan.
One constant throughout her academic career has been her writing. Tasker won the Daily Telegraph’s young science writer award in 1999 and wrote about her postdoctoral travels in an often humorous blog of her adventures. Inspired by her scientist parents (her mother is also a science writer), Tasker wrote articles related to astronomy and physics for such publications and websites as Scientific American, The Conversation and Space.com.
When she took up her role as an assistant professor of physics at Hokkaido University in 2011, Tasker wove writing into her research and teaching load in the form of a monthly blog for the university website. She wrote about her work as well as that of her fellow researchers. While Tasker enjoyed her time in Japan’s northern island, earning the university president’s award for education for three consecutive years, she had her sights set on a wider audience.
“I was really interested in science communication and wanted to do more writing,” Tasker says. “Hokkaido didn’t have any problem with that, but time wasn’t reserved for it in my job. I was very supportive of the aims of the department of physics, but science writing was very important. I really enjoyed it, so I started to look for opportunities where I could combine my research and science writing more formally.”
Image (right): Hayabusa2 at Tanegashima Space Center
Then, two things happened. Bloomsbury, the publisher of the Harry Potter titles, approached Tasker in early 2014 to see if she would consider writing a book about planet formation.
“I believe this is called opportunity knocking,” says Tasker with another of her easy laughs. “I’d always been interested in writing a book, and I thought that if I really wanted to go into science writing, this could be something I could point to and say, ‘I have experience. I can do this job.’”
The ensuing two-and-a-half years of research and writing culminated in The Planet Factory. In it, Tasker explores the topic of exoplanets, planets outside our solar system that have only been observable in the last 30 years. Something of a departure from her previous work on galaxy formation, the subject represented an exciting step.
“It’s still astrophysics but it is a change of field, so there is a lot of work you need to do to switch,” she explains. “I’d been interested in this for a while, so I used the book as an excuse to spend time doing this.”
In 2016, Tasker saw that JAXA was looking for an associate professor. She had written some articles about Hayabusa2 with Professor Shogo Tachibana, a member of the mission team. Tasker wrote to JAXA with a proposition: since the agency’s English outreach was not as substantial as it was in Japanese, she could help to change that.
The Japanese space agency liked the idea and hired Tasker that year. Her initial assignment was to help publicize Hayabusa2, which was hurtling toward Ryugu at the time. Press releases, articles and tweets appeared almost simultaneously in Japanese and English, and to her—and JAXA’s—delight, stories began appearing in global media outlets. Tasker realized her work was having an impact when a series of travel snafus delayed a press release and she received a frantic e-mail from the BBC the moment she stepped off a flight.
“It showed that people really cared we were putting out this information,” Tasker says. “They were ready with their own stories and were just waiting for information from us. It wasn’t just Japan paying attention. It was worldwide. That’s been amazing.”
Image: illustration of exoplanet GJ 436b
Based at JAXA’s Sagamihara campus in Kanagawa Prefecture, Tasker also writes articles and blog posts about the work of her colleagues for the organization’s website. “They approach me now,” she says, “which is great.”
Finding ways to convey the science clearly and effectively is a challenge Tasker embraces. During the pandemic, she taught herself Blender, an open-source, 3D graphics software suite, so she could use video to better present JAXA’s work. The curiosity, creativity and determination she aims to spark in an audience, she says, form the foundation of space exploration itself.
“You have to be imaginative enough to think that these missions could even be possible,” she says. “These are sometimes quite audacious ideas for people to even have. To take the technology we possess, imagine what could happen and invent something that allows us to do what’s never been done before is an immensely creative process.”
Such bold and groundbreaking science, Tasker says, deserves broadcasting to all humankind.
“The results shouldn’t just be restricted to the handful of scientists who worked on them,” Tasker says. “The questions these missions ask—What is the origin of life? Why are we here?—are ones we all want to understand. That’s one reason why these missions are almost always international. These are really exciting debates and discussions, and we should all get to feel a part of it.”
Words: Joan Bailey
Top image of Elizabeth Tasker: Kayo Yamawaki
TAC Talk: Elizabeth Tasker
April 21 | 7–8pm
