Dreaming Big

As a child growing up in Nairobi City, the astronomer Susan Murabana didn’t get much encouragement to look to the stars. The solar system wasn’t a big part of her school’s curriculum. Her disappointment turned to wonder in her early 20s, when she encountered her first telescope and spotted Saturn and its icy rings. “Seeing something I had only read about in a textbook, it made me realize how small we really are.” In 2014, Murabana bought a telescope with her husband. Inspired by how studying space had opened up her life, the couple decided to give kids the same experience. They called their program The Travelling Telescope, and circle around Kenya bringing astronomy education and a portable planetarium to schools and communities. So far, they’ve met with 300,000 children in the process.