Sarah Lightfoot

Physicist

Hey! I’m Sarah, and I’m currently doing a Masters in Physics at Durham University. This means that over the last 3 years I have done lots of research and learning about pretty much everything in the Universe.

This year, I’m helping on a big project about Black Holes- which hopefully means that some of the stuff I will be finding out you can learn later on if you go on to study Physics! Black holes are mysterious ‘holes’ (as you probably guessed) in the Universe, which are so massive that they even suck light into them- making them black! This means that it’s extra hard to learn stuff about them, but we’re getting there. Last year, I spent my summer at Keele University, researching how these crazy Black Holes in the Universe evolve out of the stars we see in the sky, and how you can get super massive black holes!

Being a Physicist means that I can help out in lots of different areas, Physics is all about problem solving and finding answers to questions no-one knows the answer to. It is very exciting to be a Physicist – we are constantly finding more things that we don’t know about, which means more things to research. We live in a Universe which is filled with things just waiting to be discovered. There are many ways that I can use my Physics to make this world a better place and make people’s lives better. This is why I am going into renewable energy. This means that I’m going to try and help this world find a manageable way to use energy, whether that energy is generated from wind farms, solar panels, or even from heat underground. I want to help save this world from climate change and combat global warming!

Next year I hope to carry on my dream in making a difference in how we view and use energy. Remember to turn your lights off when you’re not using them! Anyway, being a scientist truly is great. It is filled with excitement of the unknown, and I hope that one day you get to be as excited about not knowing things as I am.

Good luck, you can change the world!

If you like learning about space check out our Cosmic Box here!