Five of the St Joseph’s Broadstairs STEAMETTES (they love Science , Technology, Engineering, Art & Maths) have been successful in getting their greetings message sent to the astronauts on board the International Space Station for Mission Zero by the European Space Agency.

The STEAMettes wrote their message particularly for the attention of the two female astronauts on board, Christina Koch and Anne McClain.

The five girls also gave a presentation to a local community group, the Monkton Stargazers, explaining how they wrote the coding for the message in Python for the raspberry Pi computer which is on board the Space Station. They also detailed how they had devised a way to display the on-board space station temperature.

Not inclined to rest on their laurels, the girls have also been busy using their digital animation skills to take part in Lumen’s astronomy exhibition called Cosmic Sublime at the Pie Factory Gallery in Margate. The girls coded animations to show a rocket in space, the planets in the solar system, the life and death of our sun, some constellations and a black hole swallowing a galaxy.

The other artists were most impressed with the work of the STEAMettes who have been asked to submit their work to Lumen’s next exhibition in London.