RAL Space

Year 9 to 13 students were treated to a presentation by Dr Caroline Cox, an Earth Observation Specialist at Rutherford Appleton Laboratories Space department aimed at young people interested in STEM. The IET Women in STEM talks are in collaboration with UTC Reading, Reading Girl's School and Kendrick School. Caroline spoke about how her work with the SLSTR (Sea and Land Temperature Radiometer) and how computer algorithms are used from satellite imagery to decompose areas of pixels from readings in order detect clouds and build an abstracted map of temperature. Examples included imagery of Mount Etna, Sicily and Hurricane Irma. Caroline also demonstrated the software used to interrogate the images and discussed the complex algorithms and data collection methods in order to build a bigger picture. She raised important questions about how algorithms were continually being developed to handle exceptional circumstances and build in tolerance in order to intelligently identify objects within a map. Dr Cox then described her journey and inspirations that led her to being a space scientist and highlighted different pathways and into Space Science.