Advertise with Bridge River Lillooet News! Call us today!
Visit The Chief, for everything you need to know about what's going on in Squamish, B.C., and surrounding area.
Visit the Coast Reporter, for everything you need to know about the Sunshine Coast, B.C., and surrounding area.
Visit the Powell River Peak, for everything you need to know about Powell River, B.C., and the upper coast.
Visit the Whistler Question, for everything you need to know about Whistler, B.C., and surrounding area.
|
 |
|
| |
 ; |
Weston Pike was invited to the NASA Ames Research Centre in August 2007
; It takes a community to raise a child. This African saying has come to mind often while reading stories printed in Bridge River Lillooet News. Articles about the children of this community, grown into adults.
Recently we travelled to Santa Clara, California to an Astrobiology convention (AbSciCon 2008) to listen to a presentation by Weston Pike. Weston was born in Lillooet and graduated from LSS in 2000. He then spent five years at TRU graduating with a degree in ecology and environmental biology. On graduating he learned that NASA and UBC, with additional funding by the CSA and National Geographic, were doing research at Pavilion Lake. Weston was always interested in astronomy and space research and here was access to it right in his own community. He met with the leaders on the project and suggested some research that interested him in conjunction with the Pavilion Lake Research Project. From this initial contact he was invited out to participate in the field work that season, volunteering his time working with the scientists. The following season he was hired as field support and had another opportunity to work with the international group of scientists on the project.
In August 2007 he was invited down to the NASA AMES research center in Mountain View California. He spent three months there under Dr. Chris Mckay and working with Dr. Darlene Lim, a NASA researcher on the Pavilion Lake Research Project. During his time at NASA, Weston identified and classified the new discovery of microbialites in Kelly Lake and from this work prepared an abstract for the Astrobiology convention and was accepted.
In the heart of Silicon Valley, at the Santa Clara convention center, science students and educators from 28 countries gathered to present some of the latest research. The conference covered three major themes: The Astrophysical and Planetary Context for Life; The Origin and Evolution of Life; The Search for Life In Our Solar System and Beyond. Many of the sessions were very inspiring as problems and possibilities of our infinite universe were presented. Problems such as needing space travel to see more of our universe as telescopes aren't strong enough. They have discovered multiple planets far beyond our solar system. Possibilities of finding life out there were discussed and ideas were exchanged on the potential shape, form, and energy requirements of such llife.. Other sessions were hopelessly technical and incomprehensible to the uninitiated. Complicated chemical formulas and math equations and words like isotope geochemistry and hyaloclastites
Read more about Weston 's presentation in this week's edition of the BRLN, on newsstands this week.
|
|
