“When a woman manages to fulfill her dream and be the protagonist of something, she opens doors for other women.” The statement is made by Geovana Sousa, 21, a physics student from Ceará, who detected 46 new asteroids during a NASA project, the US space agency.
“When one opens doors, the next one will be easier to enter, because one inspires the other. It’s important to have women doing science. If I’m an inspiration or if another woman serves as an inspiration, we go further,” says Sousa.
She is a student in the first period of the physics course at IFCE (Federal Institute of Education, Science and Technology of Ceará). The discovery took place in November during NASA’s Hunting Asteroids project, developed online and in partnership with the Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation.
Until I managed to detect the first asteroid, it took a while. Inexperienced, he began to observe other citizen scientists doing detection.
She only signed up for the program after seeing the initiative of another Brazilian, younger than her.
“I saw Nicolinha doing it and that was influencing me. And I thought: ‘Guys, I don’t know, but I’m going to learn.’ It was really hard, because I needed to learn anyway”, he recalls.
She refers to Nicole Oliveira Semião, 8, from Alagoas, who identified 23 new asteroids after joining, in 2020, the same program in which Geovana participates. If NASA confirms Nicole’s findings, she could become one of the youngest new celestial body hunters in the world.
For detections, the program provides an image bank for each citizen scientist. After the discovery indication, the asteroids undergo an analysis, which can take up to eight years, by professional astronomers.
Once validated, the author can name the found asteroids. Geovana, for example, intends to include the names of family members, in addition to something that refers to the preservation of the Amazon.
“I’m going to put the names of my father, my mother and some people I know. I also want to put something that makes people aware of the importance of the Amazon, because I’m Brazilian and, above all, I’m from the Amazon”, he explains.
Geovana is from Manaus, the daughter of a motorcycle taxi driver with a secretary. When I was a child I wanted to be a princess, but later in my teens came my passion for astronomy. After completing high school at a public school in Manaus, he went to study accounting, in order to raise money to get out of the city and try to fulfill his dream of being an astronaut.
“I didn’t have the money to move to another city. Other than that, I was afraid to face my dreams. Afraid to face my own desires,” he says. In 2020, after passing through Sisu, she moved alone to the municipality of Tianguá, in Ceará, 387 km from Fortaleza.
During the pandemic, Geovana performs volunteer work to disseminate science to children, teenagers and adults in shelters.
“We tell stories, talk about science. It’s almost a literacy job. Why study so much, if I don’t pass on what I know to other people? Knowledge is only useful when the other also has access to knowledge”, he declares
Since graduating, the student has been working to create an astronomy club for students from public and private schools in the region, so that they can become interested in exact science subjects and win medals in education Olympics.
Currently, the young scientist survives on the R$ 400 received from the Institutional Program for Scientific Initiation Scholarships (PIBIC), from the CNPq (National Council for Scientific and Technological Development).
It is common, account, the payment to be late. “It’s not a month or two that payment is late. We have so many good people doing science around here. Even so, we’re not valued, with science suffering cuts and more budget cuts.”
Faced with local difficulties, Geovana intends to pursue a master’s degree abroad after completing his graduation. “Brazil is losing brilliant minds, because it doesn’t invest in education. I dream big. I want to be a NASA employee, I want to win the Nobel.
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