By Andrea Hargraves 
Passionate about astronomy, Maria Larissa Pereira Paiva, from Ceará, or Larittrix – as she likes to be called – participated in NASA’s Asteroid Hunt project in June of this year. In this project, the 16-year-old girl found a previously undiscovered asteroid. A resident of Peris Ferreira, a municipality located in a small district of Ibo, Larissa is a young woman who has been curious about outer space since childhood. As a child, she admired Perez Ferreira’s sky.
She has a constellation to her name and the stern voice of someone who knows she’s entering a space where she wouldn’t have been allowed, decades ago. Maria Larissa Pereira, “Laretrex,” is a 17-year-old medal collector and nationally recognized astronomer. normal than Perez Ferrera297 km from Fortaleza, the young woman works in an area still dominated by men – the challenge is what makes her have the strength to go in search of the task of paving the way for other girls to get there too.
In Sertau, as a child, Larisa begins to fall in love with the sky. Out of curiosity, the woman from Ciara looked up at the stars and asked her grandmother to explain to her the story of “Tres Marías”. Driven by the mother and her restlessness, the little girl grew up discovering that knowing “just one constellation” wasn’t enough. The heart asked for more.
However, the walls of Pires Ferreira didn’t contain all of Larittrix’s curiosities. It took a few years for Larisa to access the Internet, thus searching for other constellations and immersing herself in that entire universe.
“I learned later that there were a lot of numbers involved, and they weren’t just simple stars (…) I turned into a lively, intelligent teenager, always ready to study more science and In love with astronomy and scientific disclosuresays the young woman.
The daughter of a public school teacher and a homemaker, the woman from Ciara has been selling popsicles to raise money and buy a study notebook. Since then, Larissa has become a multiple Science Olympiad medalist, has actually found a previously undiscovered asteroid, through a NASA project – for which she has more than 50 course certificates – and has become a galaxy classifier for the Japan Observatory.
The short walk earned her the nickname “Laretrix,” a combination of Larissa and Bellatrix—a star in the constellation Orion, a favorite of the early astronomer.
“I did experience a certain amount of discrimination for being from the interior/rural areas, for being a teenager/young woman, but mainly for being a woman. I’ve had to prove that I really understand a subject many times, when it was enough for my male colleagues to say “I know.” For us (women), unfortunately, staying in science is still a challenge, ”the young woman vented.
A feminist in the making, Larissa draws strength from difficulty and honors the women who paved the way for her. It has created, for example, the “Sem Parar nas Galáxias” project, which gives low-income girls the opportunity to become citizen scientists and do international research in astronomy.
“(I) feel so proud and empowered to make a difference, to show them, to literally show that ‘Hey! Look at me! If I can do it, so can you! We can do it, girls’,” he shoots.
Just as the municipality of Perez Ferreira was once too small for itself, it now lacks space in Brazil. She is preparing to graduate in the United States. However, being out on new frontiers shouldn’t stop her from supporting and encouraging other girls in the area.
Led by a woman in childhood and inspired by many others, the young woman knows the importance of being an authority and ensures that she will continue to strive to open pathways for girls in science. On taking on new challenges, she reveals a formula: “It’s love that keeps me going.”
