LEILA FADEL, HOST:
It only took 350 years, but the U.K. has appointed a woman to the position of astronomer royal. Michele Dougherty will take on the responsibility advising King Charles III on all things astronomical. She says she first felt the pull of space when she was about 10 and her dad built his own telescope.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
He ground the glass for the mirror, and Dougherty and her sister helped mix concrete for the telescope's base. The first thing she saw were Jupiter's moons and Saturn's rings. Decades later, she worked with NASA to study Jupiter and Saturn.
FADEL: Now, if you've never heard of the Astronomer Royal, Louise Devoy can explain. She's the curator of the Royal Observatory in Greenwich, which is where the position started.
LOUISE DEVOY: The role of Astronomer Royal dates right back to the very origins of the observatory itself in 1675. John Flamsteed was appointed as the first Astronomer Royal, and he was tasked with mapping the stars to help improve navigation at sea.
MARTIN: Then, as we started to better understand the world around us, the position evolved, and the Astronomer Royal turned to different areas of study.
DEVOY: Photography, spectroscopy, analyzing starlights, and what I really like is the fact that we used to do magnetic measurements here as well, so detecting variations in the Earth's magnetic field. And that's something that Professor Dougherty specializes in as well, thinking about the magnetic fields around the planets. So there's some nice synergy there, I think.
FADEL: Today, an Astronomer Royal's main objective is to get people more excited about astronomy. Dougherty says she wants more people to understand how astronomy is part of our everyday lives.
MARTIN: Devoy does, too. She says she hopes having the first ever woman in the role gets more people talking about the Royal Observatory.
DEVOY: I think it's also an exciting moment and also an important milestone to show that, yes, women are sort of recognized within professional astronomy. When women first started working here in the 1890s, they were very poorly paid. They had very little recognition for their work, and I think they would be absolutely delighted to be here in this moment.
FADEL: Dougherty will join the ranks of some of the most notable astronomers in history, like James Bradley, who provided evidence that the Earth orbits the Sun. Another past astronomer royal, Edmond Halley, a name many might know since he's got a comet named after him. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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