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Staff at ESO Fellows At Astronomical News Staff at ESO Eleonora Sani I had taken the first step, but still had to choose the topic for my degree thesis I’ve always been fascinated by natural (and thus, once more, an important chal- behaviour — why things work in one way lenge for the future). I was interested in rather than another. But, sincerely, I observational work on Solar spectroscopy hadn’t thought to become an astronomer. and had already contacted one team, I started to be interested in astronomy since the Observatory of Arcetri (where just by chance when I was in my late I was supposed to finish my Masters) teens. Walking in the city centre I saw an had a great tradition in such studies. But amateur telescope in a shop and thought, then I had a meeting with the director, “Well it would be nice to look at stars and Professor Franco Pacini, and he con- galaxies with such a thing!” vinced me that working in extragalactic astronomy with a recently formed team I became enthusiastic about going of young researchers would be really around the countryside camping and stimulating. So once more I changed my looking at the sky with my brand-new plans and started a curriculum centred telescope, but still astronomy was on supermassive black holes and their not my first choice for future studies. co-evolution with galaxies. My PhD and I started studying physics at the Univer- my first postdocs were great periods, sity of Florence with some vague idea during which I started my own project of taking a Masters in quantum physics based on Very Large Telescope data and Eleonora Sani or something related to the super-small had the opportunity to visit the Max Plank world. But then, when I had to choose Institut für extraterrestrische Physik in support astronomers, who appeared to my specialisation I realised that astro- Garching to work on both satellite and me as super-heroes! physics is the most complete discipline, interferometric data. because it spans the range from atomic Now I have become part of this team, physics, Solar studies, radiation pro- My first experience with an 8-metre-class supporting VLT Unit Telescope 1 and cesses, plasma physics and complex telescope came when I went to Paranal I am in training as the instrument scien- dynamics to cosmology, and entails to observe with the Infrared Spectrometer tist for the K-band Multi-Object Spectro- the use of many different kinds of tech- and Array Camera (ISAAC) for my own graph (KMOS), a jewel of infrared tech- nologies, from ground-based facilities project. I remember how nervous and nology. I am not a super-hero for sure, to satellites and many more. How can excited I was at the same time because but will face new challenges and exciting a researcher desire more than having of the scientific challenge and I was times in the future with the new genera- almost all these fields rolled into one? also a bit fascinated by the skills of the tion of facilities. Fellows at ESO Matthieu Béthermin men attracted me. But this was nurtured up kids. A few months later, we moved only through reading books and watching to the south of France. There, I discovered I was born in Paris in 1985 and grew up TV documentaries. why people say the night sky is black in Suresnes in the western suburbs. and I saw the Milky Way for the first time. From there, the night sky was a sort of One of the main events that pushed This was beautiful. I started to explore bright orange haze caused by all the me towards astronomy, paradoxically, this new world with binoculars and then sodium streetlights. The city of light was happened on a crowded urban highway with a small telescope. After observing certainly not the best place to enjoy the in the south of Paris. I was ten years the Andromeda Galaxy and reading that faint and diffuse Milky Way. At a young old. After being stuck in a traffic jam for the light from there had travelled 2.5 billion age, I was already fascinated by the three hours trying to re-enter Paris after years before hitting my retina, I was so question of our origins. Everything about a weekend, my parents had decided fascinated that I decided I wanted to astronomy, dinosaurs, and prehistoric that Paris was no longer a place to bring study the cosmos. 64 The Messenger 162 – December 2015 I thus started to study physics and metres diameter with a resolution and maths, since this is the first requirement sensitivity in the submillimetre matching towards becoming an astrophysicist. the performance that the Hubble Space I always loved physics and how it con- Telescope can reach in the visible. For nects the world of numbers to reality the first time, the dust in distant galaxies and paradoxically gives sense to events is not seen as a faint blob, but we can through abstraction. I first studied at the study the detail and find surprising mor- Lycée du Parc in Lyon and then at the phologies. Ecole Normale Supérieure in Cachan, near Paris. During this period I had a As an ESO Fellow, I had the honour to six-week internship at the Nançay radio go to observe at ALMA as astronomer telescope studying pulsars under the on duty. The basecamp of ALMA from supervision of Ismael Cognard. I discov- which the telescope is controlled offers ered the large gap between amateur a breathtaking view of the Atacama and professional astronomy. There was Desert and the Andean volcanoes. But no long night-sky observing, but high- the high site at 5000 metres above sea tech instruments and massive use of level, on a gigantic plateau, where the computers. Thus it was decided: I defi- array is installed, is even more incredible. nitely wanted to become astrophysicist! Operating such ultra-high technology facilities in such a tough environment is I then studied for my Masters in astro- challenging. My experience at ALMA was physics in Paris. I discovered far-infrared probably one of the highlights of my surveys during a hands-on session on career as an astronomer, and this was data analysis. I really liked the challenge thanks to the ESO Fellowship! of extracting galaxies in data with a very limited resolution. These surveys were also essential to understanding the star Matthieu Béthermin Ke Wang formation history of the Universe. The subject was scientifically interesting and I grew up in the suburb of Chongqing, challenging and I decided to do my Emanuele Daddi, my collaborator and in southwest China, a place famous for PhD thesis on this topic supervised by I finally managed to identify the galaxies its delicious Sichuan cuisine. There, in Hervé Dole, and in close collaboration at the origin of the infrared background summer, temperatures can reach 40°C, with Guilaine Lagache. and the dark-matter halos which host so families would gather in the front yard them. We found that in the early Universe, after supper to enjoy the cool evening The goal of my thesis was to identify about 10 billion years ago, a large fraction breeze. My brother and I would play with the galaxies at the origin of the cosmic of the stars were formed at a very rapid our dog and cat before falling asleep in infrared background. This background is pace in few very massive galaxies hosted the starry light. It was at that time I the relic of all the dust emission across by massive overdensities. The nature of became fascinated by the charming cosmic time and is very important for the these gigantic star factories, forming beauty of the night skies. Then I started understanding of the formation of stars in 100 times more stars than the Milky Way, a long journey to find out “what these the Universe. The newborn stellar popu- was very hard to explain. shining little dots are”. I conducted my lations emit a lot of ultraviolet light, which first observations using a homemade toy cannot escape the clouds of dust in the After these few years of hard but exciting telescope, targeting the Moon and Jupiter, vicinity where the stars were born. But work, I had the amazing opportunity to without knowing that Galileo Galilei did the dust re-emits the energy of this light come to ESO as a Fellow to pursue my the same thing almost 400 years before. in the far-infrared, allowing us to study own research programmes, aimed at “How great it would be, if I could own a this hidden star formation. unveiling the nature of these galaxies. real telescope,” I thought. Astronomer Being independent so early in a research soon topped the list of my dream careers. Unfortunately, these distant galaxies career is extremely stimulating. I continue Also included in that list were astronaut, cannot be detected directly in the data to use Herschel data and have found athlete, archaeologist and history teacher. of the Spitzer and Herschel far-infrared gigantic gas reservoirs in these giant After running several marathons, my space observatories. I thus developed galaxies in the young Universe. But, a injured meniscus warned me that being statistical tools to detect the signature of revolution in my research field is starting an athlete was not a good option. these distant galaxy populations in the with the Atacama Large Millimeter/sub- faint fluctuations they cause in the cosmic millimeter Array (ALMA). In high school I did well in natural sci- infrared background. After a three-year ences, was interested in many fields, but PhD thesis and a further two-year post- ALMA is especially designed to observe physics was always my favourite.
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