Shooting for the Stars

At the age of 4, Gael Gonzalez remembers sitting on the back porch of his home in Loris, S.C., with his maternal grandmother gazing up at the night sky, listening to her sing about the moon in her native Spanish. Unable to pronounce luna, he would say moona, adorably so, as the two would sing and point to the sky – a fond memory he believes set the foundation for his interest in astronomy.

Gonzalez’s curiosity for the “unknown” continued throughout his middle and high school years. His adeptness in math paired with his curiosity continued to shape his love for astronomy.

Gonzalez graduated at the top of his high school class and had his mind set on becoming the first in his family to attend college. He chose the College because it’s the only school in South Carolina with an astrophysics program. Six scholarships were also a big incentive, particularly the CofC Foundation Scholarship.

Now a junior double major in astrophysics and physics with an impressive 3.78 GPA, Gonzalez received funding from the Minorities in STEM Research Award Program, the SC Space Grant Fellowship and the Summer Undergraduate Research with Faculty grants to help cover his research expenses over the past summer.

Over the course of the summer, he helped develop two payloads – research instruments – that will travel to the International Space Station in February. One payload will flight-test a liquid lens to look at extremophile microbes – microorganisms that can survive extremely harsh environments – while the other will test an ultraviolet camera to observe stellar outbursts, which greatly impact whether planets can be habitable (large outbursts can sterilize a planet).

“Our primary long-term goal is to gain a better understanding of stellar activity of young stars at the ultraviolet wavelengths and its effects on nearby planets,” says Gonzalez of the UV camera. “This will progress our knowledge of the relationships between a star and how it affects a planet’s formation and evolution.”

The research is a collaboration between CofC astrophysics professor Joe Carson and Marcos Díaz from the University of Chile. The plan is to include a final camera on a small satellite (or CubeSat) next year. This is the College’s first space-based mission and South Carolina’s first space-based technology demonstration. Carson’s hope is for CofC to become a center for CubeSats, paving the way for future missions and workforce development.

“Gael has a lot of drive, enthusiasm and persistence,” says Carson, hailing Gonzalez for being the first in his family, which emigrated from Mexico, to attend college. “They had very few resources. He’s not only a pioneer at CofC, but he’s also a pioneer in his family.”

Gonzalez hopes to work for NASA after graduate school. His family – which includes his mother, grandmother and two younger siblings – couldn’t be more elated. “When I talk to my mom and grandma, they always tell me the same thing: that they’re really proud,” he says. “And they get emotional sometimes.”

The tears turn to looks of bewilderment when he talks about his research, however. “They didn’t understand what it was,” he says, noting it was hard to explain in Spanish. “But they eventually understood after I sent them pictures. Yeah, this research is a really big thing, not just for me, but for my family, too.” – George Johnson