Crosspost: We All Share the Same Sky (as told by Amina Helmi)

Last week, astronomer Amina Helmi was awarded the 2026 Kavli Prize, which honors scientists for breakthroughs in astrophysics, neuroscience, and nanoscience. 

Helmi shares her journey into astronomy and her thoughts on the discovery of the merger with our galaxy and Gaia-Enceladus. This is a crosspost of the original feature article from The Kavli Prize published on June 10, 2026.

Photo by Bram Saeys (NWO) via Wikipedia.

Mine was an atypical family that lived, of all places, in Bahia Blanca, Argentina. A Dutch mother, an Egyptian father and me. Born on a Tuesday morning in October 1970, I was the first Argentine in our line. My parents had come from Egypt, where they'd lived for a decade after meeting in the Netherlands, and Argentina was meant to be temporary. Two years, maybe three. But something about the place agreed with them: the people, the cultural middle ground it offered, the weather, and two years became a lifetime.

Argentina is a country of immigrants so I was only somewhat unusual. Yet, few of my peers have experienced such a multicultural upbringing, and growing up in that world has shaped me in many ways.

Read the rest of Amina Helmi's story and more about the Kavli Prize at https://www.kavliprize.org/amina-helmi-autobiography.