On Friday the 6th of August, four lucky senior students: Kate Stedman (13SN), Olivia Kennington (13SN), Aidan Morris (13IT), and Joshua Daglish (12GN) had the amazing opportunity to visit NASA’S plane SOFIA (Stratospheric Observatory For Infrared Astronomy) telescope at Christchurch Airport, with the three physics teachers: Emma Trott, Sue Napier, and Maree Vercoe.

We had an amazing time learning about all the discoveries SOFIA has made in the past few years, for example, the discovery of oxygen particles in the Martian atmosphere and Jupiter releasing a lot more thermal energy than absorbing.

We all had to undergo security checks by NASA and upon arrival was a further check by security which was a bit nerve-racking.

Walking into that plane and seeing a mission control-like environment and the huge telescope in the back of the plane turned my legs to jelly as the realisation hit that I was standing in a plane used by NASA.

This Boeing-747 is colossal and it took a good hour to get through everything including the mountain of photos we took.

I am very grateful for this opportunity that these wonderful teachers have given us to feed our passion for astronomy even more. We thank you and hope you enjoyed this trip as much as we did. Leaving SOFIA has made me even more enthusiastic about astronomy when I didn’t think it was possible.