When Bethany Downer was little, she would cut images out of the Hubble Space Telescope calendar and pin them on her bedroom wall.

Her room was covered in a constellation of pictures that represented some of the greatest discoveries and mysteries of our universe.

Now she works for the European Space Agency as the communications lead for both the Hubble and James Webb Space Telescope projects.

She says that if someone had told her younger self that she would someday be working with these projects, she wouldn’t have believed them.

Ms. Downer graduated from Memorial in 2016. She then became one of only 40 people from around the world to be selected for the Master of Science in Space Studies program at the International Space University in Strasbourg, France.

In 2018, she won the Horizon Award for exceptional achievement by a Memorial University graduate 35 years old or younger.

She later became the first person from Newfoundland and Labrador to be selected for astronaut training at the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences.

As a part of her training, she experienced weightlessness during parabolic flights and high G-forces during acrobatic flights.

 

Bethany Downer, in full astronaut gear, prepares for training at the International Institute for Astronautical Sciences. Photo courtesy of Bethany Downer.

 

Though the experience was exhilarating, she admits that travelling into space simply isn’t her primary motivation.

These days, she’s more excited by the work being done by both Hubble and Webb.

“Just about everything that’s being done in space exploration or space science is a first in some way,” she says. “And I think that’s what motivates me. It’s the idea that we’re always learning something new.”

She says that getting to work with the Hubble project was the greatest blessing of her life. Then she became involved with the James Webb Space Telescope project when it launched on December 25, 2021.

The first images from Webb were released in July 2022. Ms. Downer remembers all the excitement as her team prepared to show the world what Webb, Hubble’s younger and more-advanced sibling, is capable of.

Even President Joe Biden wanted to get involved and announce one of the images.

She says the worldwide response to Webb has exceeded even her highest expectations.

But she’s certain to remind people that these telescopes are accomplishing far more than taking stunning photographs of our universe.

“The images are beautiful, absolutely, but the science is keeping us humble. A lot of what we’re learning from Webb is challenging what we thought we knew.”

Ms. Downer is astounded by the amount of data that Hubble and Webb have produced. The information is constantly changing what we know about the universe. And all that data is available to the public, which she says speaks to the value of these missions and the cooperation between nations.

Though it’s no longer her main priority, if the opportunity arises, Ms. Downer says she would love to travel into space. But for now, she’s enjoying life on earth.

She takes every chance she can to promote the wonders of science, technology, engineering and math, especially to young women.

And by some amazing act of serendipity, she is now a part of the team that produces the Hubble Space Telescope calendars that fascinated her when she was younger.

She likes to imagine that, out there somewhere, another young woman is using those calendar images to decorate her walls and dreaming of the stars.