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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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?”