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The Question
(Submitted September 25, 1996)
Hi, I'm doing a report on astronomers and I would like to know how it
feels to be one. Where did you go to college? Are there any special
accomplishments that you have achieved? If you could write back A.S.A.P. it
would really help. Thanks.
The Answer
Like most astronomers nowadays, I spend most of my work hours in front
of a computer. All the data are in digital form, stored on computer
tapes and disks; we manipulate and plot the data and theoretical models
on the computers to try to discover what is going on. Most of my
observations are done using satellites; whenever I actually observe with
telescopes at observatories, I really enjoy it because, in addition to
taking data with sophisticated instruments, I can go outside and see
the night sky full of thousands of stars, without city lights and clouds.
I was born and grew up in Japan; after my undergraduate degree (University
of Tokyo), I moved to England and did my doctorate at Oxford --- researchers
in any field are very international; I'm one example of that.
I hope you will come back to our web site again in the future: for one
thing, we're preparing one-page profiles of various members of this
group. Since we take turns answering the questions sent in from people
like you, we will have one profile linked from our pages at any given
time --- the profile of the person behind these answers. So if you
visit our site often, you will be able to learn about other people at
the learning center (although this may be too late for your report!).
Hope this helps,
Koji Mukai
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