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Sunday March 28, 2010 5:47 PM (EST+7)
With hope and a telescope


Read more: Gazan children, astronomy, Gaza education, Suleiman Baraka

RAMALLAH, Mar. 28 (JMCC) - After a very successful career in space science research abroad, Suleiman Baraka, a Palestinian astrophysicist has returned to his hometown in the Gaza Strip with a mission, teaching Gaza's youth about the vast frontier in the sky.

Suleiman Baraka's journey could be measured in light years: the eldest of 14 children of a butcher, he rose from humble beginnings in violence-wracked Gaza to become an astrophysicist, space weather expert and researcher for NASA, the US space agency.

Now, at 45, he is back home with a new mission — to teach kids to look up from their blockaded, beaten-down surroundings and into the limitless beauty of the universe.

He has procured the first known telescope in Gaza, a donation from the International Astronomical Union, and plans to introduce astronomy in Gaza's three universities. He also dreams of building an observatory and a geomagnetic research station.

It seems very ambitious for a territory that has been under lockdown by Israel and Egypt for nearly four years. But Baraka is stubbornly optimistic. In a region torn by political and religious conflict, he looks at what people have in common, not what sets them apart.

There is a beautiful universe for everybody — no borders, no fences, no wall, he said in an interview...


Read the full article at The Los Angeles Times...
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