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Maggie Aderin has presented the BBC\u2019s The Sky at Night since 2014<\/p>\n
Paul Wilkinson Photography<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n
Maggie Aderin grew up watching Star Trek<\/i>, dreaming of one day going into space. Today, she hasn\u2019t made it into orbit, but she is one of the UK\u2019s best-known scientists, an award-winning astronomer and broadcaster who has worked on the James Webb and Gemini telescopes. She spoke to New Scientist\u2019s<\/i> The World, the Universe and Us<\/i> podcast about writing her autobiography Starchild: My life under the night sky<\/i>, and how she got to where she is today.<\/b><\/p>\n
Rowan Hooper: Maggie, you\u2019re host of The Sky At Night<\/i>, you\u2019ve been president of the British Science Association and are a science educator in general. You\u2019ve also had a huge impact over the years speaking to tens of thousands of children. Reading Starchild<\/em>, it felt like a great work of outreach because, effectively, you\u2019re saying, \u201cLook, I did this and so can you.\u201d Is that part of the prompting behind it?<\/b><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Maggie Aderin: It is. I always say reach for the stars, no matter what your stars are. As a child, I used to watch the Clangers<\/i> and Star Trek<\/i>, and actually, both physically and metaphorically, I am reaching for the stars. I want to get out there and it\u2019s been the driving force of my life. And I think because I\u2019ve had this big crazy dream \u2013 I haven\u2019t been out in space and I may never do it \u2013 but just by having the dream, it\u2019s enabled me to do things I would\u2019ve never thought possible. That\u2019s what I like to say to anyone I speak to, so to do it as a book just seemed like a great opportunity.<\/p>\n There are loads of things that jumped out at me in the book, but, first of all, you went to 13 schools in 12 years?<\/b><\/p>\n Actually, it\u2019s funny, because I didn\u2019t really realise that wasn\u2019t happening to other people. It\u2019s because my parents broke up when I was quite young, so there was an ongoing custody [issue], swinging from one to the other.<\/p>\n \n