Yvette's stellar win
By SARAH CODDINGTON - North Shore Times
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Yvette Perrott has helped discover a planet and is now following in the footsteps of Lord Rutherford.
The Mairangi Bay resident has just won a Rutherford scholarship and will be travelling to study at Cambridge University.
She will work in the laboratory once led by Lord Rutherford, the New Zealander credited with splitting the atom and ushering in the nuclear age.
The former Westlake Girls College student will be studying for a PhD in physics.
The scholarship will cover costs of study plus £10,500 every year for living costs.
While Miss Perrott was completing her bachelor of arts and science with honours at Auckland University she was part of an international microlensing observations in astrophysics project.
During the study Miss Perrott helped measure the mass of a planet that was orbiting a brown dwarf star.
She says this is one of the first planets to be discovered with that type of star near it.
"It's so far away, no one could ever get there. But it's amazing that with minimal information you can work out what it is.
"Everyone has thought what's out there and how can we find out more," she says.
The study uses the gravitational lens effect, originally used by Einstein to detect objects in space.
The technique refers to light rays passing either side of a massive object and bending towards it.
It allows astronomers to detect objects in space that do not emit light such as black holes.
Miss Perrott will be going to England later next year to start at Cambridge University.
