Update: NASA has denied awarding the scholarship to Sataparna Mukherjee, however, she still claims to have won it. Read more here.
A class 12 girl, Sataparna Mukherjee from a village near Kolkata has been chosen by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) for the prestigious Goddard Internship Programme (GIP) under the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), reports a leading English daily.
NASA's GIP selects five exceptional students from across the globe and funds their entire education after school.
Mukherjee will pursue graduation, post graduation and PhD (as NASA faculty) in aerospace engineering at its London Astrobiology Centre once she finishes her exams from her school Madhyamgram in Kamduni. "I am very happy to get this opportunity where I will also work as a researcher at the NASA centre in London," she said.
The eighteen-year-old said that she had shared her thoughts on 'Black Hole Theory' on a social networking site which has many members who also include scientists. One of the members gave her the link of NASA's official website and asked her to post her findings.
Following this, she sent her paper on Black Hole Theory and how it could be used to make a Time Machine to NASA.
Mukherjee will be working as "employee and researcher", where she will be part of its earth science and technology development programme under the GIP.
Her father said that she will leave on August 17 though NASA is paying her a generous amount of money he will have to bear the expense for the travelling. " We will arrange for the passage money, which is quite high. I am thinking of taking a loan because I don't want to let this opportunity go," he said.
Her teacher Pulak Chakraborty, an English professor from Nabagram Hiralapal College who is also acting as her referee at Oxford said that Mukherjee was a good student. "She is original, and that has made her attain so much," he said.
