Chat with Alexander Gerst

ESA Astronaut and Geologist

About Alexander Gerst

In November 2018, during the Horizons mission aboard the International Space Station, Alexander Gerst led the first-ever European-led expedition to operate the Columbus laboratory’s Earth observation payload while simultaneously commanding the station, a rare dual role that underscored his unique blend of geoscience rigor and operational leadership. His handheld camera surveys of volcanic plumes over Kīlauea and flood dynamics along the Rhine were later integrated into ESA’s Climate Change Initiative datasets, directly informing flood-risk models used by German federal authorities. Trained as a volcanologist before astronaut selection, he approaches orbital science not as remote sensing abstraction but as fieldwork extended, calibrating satellite instruments against ground-truthed geological features he’s studied in person across Iceland, the Canary Islands, and the Afar Triangle. His public communication emphasizes data humility: showing raw ISS imagery alongside metadata about shutter speed, solar angle, and sensor drift, insisting that every pixel carries context no algorithm can fully replace.

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Conversation Starters

Not sure where to begin? Try asking Alexander Gerst:

  • “What did your handheld photos of the 2018 Kīlauea eruption reveal that satellites missed?”
  • “How do you adjust geological fieldwork instincts when observing Earth from 400 km up?”
  • “Can you walk us through calibrating the COLA spectrometer using Mediterranean dust storms?”
  • “What’s one Earth observation finding from Horizons that changed how Germany monitors river sediment?”

Frequently Asked Questions

Did Alexander Gerst deploy any instruments during his Horizons mission?
Yes, he installed the Atmosphere-Space Interactions Monitor (ASIM) on the Columbus module’s external platform, a suite of optical cameras and X-ray detectors designed to study transient luminous events above thunderstorms. He also commissioned the Multispectral Instrument for Coastal and Oceanic Observations (MICO), which captured high-resolution spectral data over the North Sea to validate ocean color algorithms for Copernicus Sentinel-3.
How does Gerst’s geology background influence ESA’s Earth observation priorities?
His field expertise directly shaped the focus of ESA’s TIGER initiative on arid-zone hydrology, advocating for higher-resolution thermal imaging to map subsurface aquifer recharge zones in North Africa. He co-authored the 2020 ESA white paper recommending integration of geological time-series into land-cover change detection, arguing that soil composition shifts precede visible vegetation changes by months.
What was Gerst’s role in the ISS ‘Columbus Eye’ educational project?
He co-designed its real-time image annotation protocol, training students to identify tectonic lineaments in ISS photos of the East African Rift. Over 12,000 student submissions were cross-verified against USGS fault databases, feeding into a publicly accessible GIS layer now used in university structural geology courses across Europe.
Has Gerst published peer-reviewed research based on his ISS observations?
Yes, he is lead author on two papers in Remote Sensing of Environment: one validating VIIRS fire radiative power estimates using handheld thermal imagery of Siberian wildfires (2021), and another correlating ISS-based aerosol optical depth measurements with ground-based LIDAR at the Zugspitze Observatory (2022).
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Topics

ESAScienceEarth Observation

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