Star gazing in Quesnel is a big part of fond childhood memories for a Cariboo astrophysicist who now works at the Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory between Baltimore and Washington, D.C.
"As a young kid one of the beautiful things about living in Quesnel is that it's very isolated and it's very dark, it's very quiet and so we lived in a normal house but we had a nice backyard," Jason Kalirai said. "I remember as a young kid looking up at the night sky in the backyard and just kind of wondering what I was seeing out there. What more was out there? And just having these basic questions that I think a lot of kids do at a young age."
Kalirai said that as he would read books about astrophysics - the study of the physical nature of stars and other celestial bodies - he would always get pulled in deeper.
"Because the universe is so complex that you realize that 'oh, wow, the things that I'm seeing are just kind of like the houses on my street, compared to the city that I live in or the province that we're in or the country that we're in - there's just so much more out there' and that was with me all through elementary school and high school and then the real turning point for me happened in Grade 11 when I started taking physics."
At that point, he fell in love with the scientific discipline that seeks to explain the behaviour of the universe, both at the very small and the very large level. His now-retired teacher, Ray Blais, was actually an astronomer and he incorporated astronomy concepts about gravity and how stars work into his physics curriculum.
"And that's what got me hooked," Kalirai said. "I remember I had a conversation with him where I realized that you could actually do this for a living and they'll pay you for it. There's an actual job of being an astrophysicist and from there I never looked back."
Kalirai, who graduated high school in Quesnel in 1996, earned three degrees at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver, including his BSc, honours physics and astronomy, MSc, astrophysics, and PhD, astrophysics.
Kalirai has a deeper connection to this area. Kalirai's wife was born in Prince George. At a young age Mandeep (better known as Mandy) moved with her family to Vancouver. Kalirai met Mandy at UBC while they both studied science.
After attending UBC, Kalirai went to the University of California at Santa Cruz as a Hubble Postdoctoral Fellow.
"Coming up through the system doing the degrees and doing research I was always most excited about advancing on the understanding of something," Kalirai said. "The primary research field I work on is the life cycles of stars, how stars change over time, and how they evolve, how they're eventually going to die, how they impact the planets that are orbiting them and how they influence the galaxies in which they live - stuff like that."
That was always his biggest passion, he added.
"But about five or six years ago it changed," Kalirai said. "And it changed when I began to understand how the system here in the United States, where I'm at now, supports science and all the different ways scientists can get involved in helping shape future priorities for astrophysics."
Kalirai said he spends a lot of time coming up with ideas for future space science projects.
"And not just for astrophysics but also planetary science and helio physics, which is the study of the sun, as well as Earth science programs," he said. "So now I get a lot of satisfaction in being a part of the process through which strategic priorities are decided for NASA and the United States to go after and often in these projects they are actually international partnerships. Sometimes it's very rewarding to see - sometimes the U.S. is leading a project that Canada is a partner on or sometimes Canada is leading a project and the U.S. is a partner."
Kalirai said the United States collaborates with many other countries on a variety of projects, including telescopes and probes that are being built.
"And that's when we're really at our best," he said. "When we're leveraging the collective expertise and talent from many different nations."
Through much study of astrophysics in the last decade or so, Kalirai said there is one thing that has become apparent.
"Planets are not special," he said. "There's nothing unique about planets. They're just the debris laying around when a star forms. There's gas and dust laying around and it forms planets and if you look at the history of astronomy it teaches that nothing is special. Our galaxy is not special. There are billions of galaxies like it in the universe. Our stars and the sun is not special. There are billions of stars like it in our galaxy and now we know planets are not special. If you just think about the future I think we'll discover that life is not special. I think we'll find evidence of life within our own solar system and I think we'll find life on other planets that are orbiting other stars because there are billions times billions of stars in the universe. I hope understanding that will give people here on Earth a sense of togetherness, a sense of closeness."
Kalirai can't stress enough the importance of youth pursuing their science interests. He said he knows making the study of STEM (science, technology, engineering and mathematics) easily accessible is key to the future population of scientists, whose curious minds may answer future questions about the universe.
"I have found it to be very rewarding to be a scientist and to help solve some of the big problems, the big questions that face us about the universe but all science is like that," he said. "It doesn't have to be astrophysics but if you want to feel that way, if you're passionate about it, it's important to be curious. It's important to try to figure out why things work the way they do and how things work. Ask questions and then go and find the answers and if it's truly for you - it's your passion - like what happened to me - you'll never look back."
