JAXA
I N D E P T H | FO CU S by her scientist parents (her mother is also a science writer), Tasker wrote articles related to astronomy and physics for such publications and websites as Scientific American, The Conversation and Space.com. When she took up her role as an assistant professor of physics at Hokkaido University in 2011, Tasker wove writing into her research and teaching load in the form of a monthly blog for the university website. She wrote about her work as well as that of her fellow researchers. While Tasker enjoyed her time in Japan’s northern island, earning the university president’s award for education for three consecutive years, she had her sights set on a wider audience. “I was really interested in science communication and wanted to do more writing,” Tasker says. “Hokkaido didn’t have any problem with that, but time wasn’t reserved for it in my job. I was very supportive of the aims of the department of physics, but science writing was very important. I really enjoyed it, so I started to look for opportunities where I could combine my research and science writing more formally.” Then, two things happened. Bloomsbury, the publisher of the Harry Potter titles, approached Tasker in early 2014 to see if she would consider writing a book about planet formation. “I believe this is called opportunity knocking,” says Tasker with another of her easy laughs. “I’d always been interested in writing a book, and I thought that if I really wanted to go into science writing, this could be something I could point to and say, ‘I have experience. I can do this job.’” The ensuing two-and-a-half years of research and writing culminated in The Planet Factory. In it, Tasker explores the Hayabusa2 at Tanegashima Space Center topic of exoplanets, planets outside our solar system that have only been observable in the as daring as land on an asteroid and bring last 30 years. Something of a departure from back samples. That’s not one person’s dream. her previous work on galaxy formation, the That’s a global society that allows us to do that. “NOT DOING THE subject represented an exciting step. We should all be proud of it, and therefore we COMMUNICATION “It’s still astrophysics but it is a change of should all know about it.” IS LIKE MAKING field, so there is a lot of work you need to do to That audacious undertaking was JAXA’s sucTHE WORLD’S BEST switch,” she explains. “I’d been interested in this cessful, six-year mission to an asteroid named CAKE AND THEN for a while, so I used the book as an excuse to Ryugu. After landing on the diamond-shaped NOT BOTHERING spend time doing this.” space rock, the Hayabusa2 spacecraft collected TO ICE IT.” In 2016, Tasker saw that JAXA was lookrock samples then returned those in a capsule ing for an associate professor. She had written to Earth last year. some articles about Hayabusa2 with ProfesIf things had gone according to her initial sor Shogo Tachibana, a member of the mission plan, however, Tasker might well be treating team. Tasker wrote to JAXA with a proposition: since the animals today rather than discussing space probes and asagency’s English outreach was not as substantial as it was in teroids. But an aptitude test at 13 years old led to a change Japanese, she could help to change that. of ambition. The Japanese space agency liked the idea and hired “School officials looked at the results and said, ‘So you Tasker that year. Her initial assignment was to help pubwant to be a veterinarian, but really all you do is read and licize Hayabusa2, which was hurtling toward Ryugu at the study about astronomy and physics?’” says Tasker with a time. Press releases, articles and tweets appeared almost laugh. “Eventually, I saw their point.” simultaneously in Japanese and English, and to her—and After studying theoretical physics at Britain’s Durham JAXA’s—delight, stories began appearing in global media University, she earned a doctoral degree in computational outlets. Tasker realized her work was having an impact astrophysics from the University of Oxford in 2006. Tasker’s when a series of travel snafus delayed a press release and postdoctoral research then took her to Canada, the United she received a frantic e-mail from the BBC the moment she States and now Japan. stepped off a flight. One constant throughout her academic career has been “It showed that people really cared we were putting out her writing. Tasker won the Daily Telegraph’s young science this information,” Tasker says. “They were ready with their writer award in 1999 and wrote about her postdoctoral travown stories and were just waiting for information from us. els in an often humorous blog of her adventures. Inspired
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