SHOOTING FOR THE STARS: In 1878, Maria Mitchell, Vassar’s first professor, and several of her students, battled July’s intense heat as they journeyed over 2,000 miles by train to Colorado to observe a solar eclipse firsthand. Other astronomers traveled from around the world to witness the event, but except for a few of their wives, the Vassar crew was the only group of women. Mitchell, who also discovered a comet, was the first professional woman astronomer in the U.S.

It was this story that initially sparked Claire Webb ’10 to do a sixth grade research project on Maria Mitchell. After spending nights peering into the heavens through her own telescope, Webb eventually set her sights on Vassar, where her student job at the observatory reaffirmed her love of astronomy. Then, last summer, Webb was presented with her own unique opportunity—the chance to don a flight suit and work on a mission with NASA.

Webb, an astronomy major, first learned of SETI (the Search for Extraterrestrial Intelligence), whose mission is to explore and explain life in the universe, as a first-year student in Astronomy Professor Debra Elmegreen’s class. Intrigued by the nonprofit’s research and partnership with NASA, Webb applied for an internship the following year and was accepted. “It was amazing to be a part of this experience,” says Webb, adding how impressed she was to also have the chance to spend time with Jill Tarter, whom the movie Contact was based on. Webb spent the summer in California working with SETI. But, just as the internship was coming to an end, another opportunity came her way, and Webb was asked to be part of a SETI airborne campaign. This meant that Webb and a crew of scientists would fly over Tahiti to observe and film a European spacecraft as it re-entered and burned up in the atmosphere, an event similar to a meteor shower.

“I felt so lucky to be a part of this mission, and it was so exciting to work with scientists from all over the world,” she says, explaining how the mission began on a base near Los Angeles, where they worked on the DC-8 airborne laboratory that would be used for the mission. “It’s basically a gutted high altitude plane that’s specialized to outfit a variety of scientific instruments.” All the seats on one side were taken out and filled with imaging equipment and cameras, and the scientists communicate via headsets.

One of the two youngest members on board, Webb went through her own NASA initiation of sorts. “I spent a night on a cherry picker, 60 feet from the plane, shining the lamps with a variety of filters so the scientists could calibrate their instruments,” she says. “They told me it would take an hour, but it ended up taking five.” After all the tweaks were made, the crew set off for Tahiti.

Just as Maria Mitchell had traveled across the country to gaze at the nearly three-minute-long eclipse, Webb’s crew had spent months preparing for four minutes of spacecraft footage. “There was such a feeling of anticipation as the plane took off that night,” recalls Webb. “All the instruments had to be in a cold environment, so it was freezing in there. We could only hear each other because, in order to block out the light, we put flame retardant black cloths up. I had a video headset on and a high resolution spectrometer that we pointed at the object. Everyone was thrilled as it finally came over the horizon.”

According to Webb, this mission, and the previous summer she spent studying a massive black hole through Vassar’s observatory as part of a project for URSI (the Undergraduate Research Summer Institute), “really confirmed that astronomy is what I want to do.” Webb, who dreams of working as an astronaut, is now one step closer, having worn a flight suit and earned mission badges. “My classes made it easy to gain an appreciation for an event like this,” she says. “Learning from professors who are working astronomers instills a sense of excitement, and then to actually be able to work in an observatory and do a mission, is the manifestation of everything I’ve learned.”

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