Where Will Science Take Us? To the Stars

Such a shame that Congress is doomed to defund the ALMA array. After, Lizzie Fletcher excoriated John Culberson’s support of the project during her successful run for Congress. Her goofy spoof of Culberson riding a rocket showed her disdain for science. Oh wait, I thought it is Republicans who reject science!

"temperatures in the area range from freezing at night to boiling during the day". So 32 to about 200 degrees? How are we to believe that, or facts in the rest of the article? C'mon this is the science section. Poetry is next door.

Visited Mauna Kea last year and took night sky photos next to Keck 1 and 2. A magical place

Of course, the telescopes at Kitt Peak near Tuscon are fabulous as well. Might be closer for a lot of people.

So fascinating!! I love visiting observatories and learning more about the universe we live in.

I clicked on this hoping to see "spellbinding images of the heavens." Instead it is intensely non-spellbinding images of telescopes. Bait and switch much?

Beautifully written and inspiring that science may take us to the stars and greater realizations about our selves though will it bring us a better world at home? Perhaps. Science can often present us with as many problems as it fixes, but has presented many opportunities. Will our moral compass use science wisely or help destroy us? The jury is still out, but still I personally appreciate deeply these revelations about our place in the universe.

The author mentioned ALMA as a place to visit. That is a bit of a journey for most, closer to home we have a smaller version - the VLA = Very Large Array - in Socorro New Mexico. (When I visited the VLA there was one of the potential candidates for use at ALMA stationed for testing).

"brought me to the shoreline of interstellar space" Great line! Indeed, we live on an amazing planetarium with the real universe all around us. A full moon must be blinding viewed from the Atacama desert or atop Mauna Kea. Lets see how long Chile can keep a garish city of light - like Las Vegas - filled with trump casinos, golf courses and nighttime lights to pollute the soul and night sky. Thanks for the list Peter - I've been to some but most already in my bucket list.

When they build a new telescope in one of these locations, I wonder what special measures they take to keep the vibrations, dust, etc, from affecting other telescopes.

Thanks for this wonderful article. It brings back memories of the visit my late wife and I made some years ago to the Palomar Observatory on Mt. Palomar, California. It was during the day, so the dome was closed and the telescope was pointed straight up, but simply being in the same room as that legendary instrument was absolutely thrilling.

any NY families inspired by this article might consider visiting the Adirondack Sky Center in Tupper Lake. Far more modest but much much closer.

Lovely, inspirational article. For those of you in Atlanta, please visit Bradley Observatory at Agnes Scott College for our free, monthly open house events! https://www.agnesscott.edu/bradleyobservatory/open-house-series.html

The sky above, the mud below. It’s revolting and criminal for Big Science, and the money juggernaut that fuels it, to look for answers in the stars, instead of finding them in the present moment, where all the answers we need are right here on Earth; answers that would allow us to live in harmony with Nature, rather than trying to thwart and subvert it. Billion dollar observatories, but not enough money to cure the diseases that kill children across the globe. Criminal, criminal.

I was surprised you did not even mention the Palomar Observatory. At the time of its inauguration in 1946 it had the largest mirror and highest resolving power and many advances in astronomy originated there. It is still in operation but few visitors drop by. Hawaii and the Atacama are more interesting. Wilhelm Evertz

Dude, how did you get so incredibly fortunate to get this assignment? Practically my entire bucket list! Cheers...

I grew up living near the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles and visited it dozens of times over the years. Aside from being an excellent astronomy museum, it does allow visitors to see solar system planets and a few stars (the Los Angeles sky is often blocked through smog, haze, and just a lot of light pollution). And, yes, the museum has been featured in dozens of films. Aside from La La Land, it was featured in the classic 1955 film, Rebel Without a Cause. If you haven't seen it, you definitely should even though the 'gangs' featured in the film are very tame by today's standards.

I was in the Atacama for awhile working on an archaeological dig. If you're talking about the beaten path, I wasn't on it. There were no hostels or wifi signs. I don't think the "town" even had a name. We were out in the middle of the desert. There was an agricultural school and a handful of family farms in the ravine. That was about it. The good news though. There was very little light pollution. The moon was about the only thing blocking a clear sight of the universe. There is nothing that beats the Atacama on the night of a new moon. We used to wander up the foothills by headlamp and sit in the dark for hours. Boxed wine and binoculars were our only other accessories. On one fun night, we retraced the original project surveyor's true north lines along the ridge. This sounds easy but celestial navigation is actually more difficult than you think when you're standing on a rock ridge in a foreign hemisphere with no lights on. I really can't describe so I won't bother trying. The surveyor was a funny Dutchman who traveled everywhere with his favorite stuffed animal though. A small raccoon if I remember correctly.

Cool stuff. Graceful read first thing on a Monday morning. And where were the spellbinding photos?! Happy to share my email! Thank you!

The Atacama is truly an amazing place. I used to visit it a couple times a year to use one of the telescopes there (at Las Campanas, as it happens). I was struck by the fact that the stars do not twinkle there. That has to do with the steadiness of the atmosphere - the seeing referred to in this piece. The Chileans are rightly proud of their astronomical facilities, and they leverage them into their educational programs for schools and for astronomical tourism; they have many small touristic observatories sprinkled around that are used for their public and school programs. I have always thought that here in the US we should have similar programs. We, at one time, had the best observatories in the world right here. Lick Observatory, above San Jose, Mount Wilson Observatory, above Pasadena and Mount Palomar Observatory, south of Temecula, were all premiere research facilities in their time. Growing populations and the resulting light pollution have taken all these sites out of commission. However, our southwest is still an amazing place for astronomy. The darkest skies in North America are found between the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Rockies. Kitt Peak Observatory, west of Tucson, is a still-active research facility that has public programs, and most of the many national parks in the area have public astronomy programs. The Southwest US offers fantastic dark skies and astronomical opportunities, and it is far closer than the Atacama.

At the Griffith, people were not lining up to see the ‘larger’ stars, but the brighter ones, I’m pretty sure. That aside, I felt that your piece, although somewhat poetic, could be confusing to readers unfamiliar with the how and what of observational astronomy as you shift from radio to optical and place to place. Anyhow, local astronomy clubs, even in poor viewing areas, have plenty of opportunities for the public to see the skies, both on a regular and ‘star party’ basis. These days, due to digital photo processing, even a small telescope with modest equipment, can make wonderful images previously obtained only by the great telescopes. For me, though, having little other than some pieces of glass between my eye and the cosmos is the emotional reward of looking up.

One of my favorite poems: When I Heard the Learn’d Astronomer BY WALT WHITMAN When I heard the learn’d astronomer,  When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me,  When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them,  When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room,  How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick,  Till rising and gliding out I wander’d off by myself,  In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look’d up in perfect silence at the stars.

Science isn’t taking “us” anywhere, except to maybe become fossilized hydrocarbons. Anthropocentrism is revolting.

Thank you for this refreshing article.

What if we all stopped for just 20 secs a day to consider there is earth, the Milky Way and trillions (and trillions) of galaxies.... and us. Your description said it all 'I was a collection of bound-together atoms surrounded by other atoms hammered into the shape of a metal airplane tube. And this tube was propelling me through the sky by burning the remains of long-dead plants and animals'. No man made religions needed, no misery spawned by ideology or power, a peaceful joyous journey to be lived ....for 20 secs a day.

Excellent piece; gratefully read; route tweaked. All the Best, LJ

Great piece, Mr. Kujawinski! Regarding the comment about oxygen levels at the top of Mauna Kea: One thing I remember learning in school about altitude and oxygen is that you’ll find the same percentage/amount of oxygen at 14,000 feet (e.g. Mauna Kea) as you would at sea level. What makes breathing challenging at altitude is the lower relative air pressure, and thusly lower partial pressure of oxygen (amongst its other gaseous buddies) that won’t perfuse as easily through our lung tissue and into our blood stream.

As an avid astro-tourist, I have visited nearly all of the sites mentioned here. At these places, I have the same realization: every person on Earth should be able to see unpolluted night skies. That view restores you spiritually, it makes cosmic-oriented thinking easier, and it motivates you to do something given how very small you are in space-time. People have no idea what they have lost unless they happen to look up while traveling between cities in rural areas or camping. Even then, generally those night skies are only halfway as unpolluted as the pristine Bortle Class 1 or 2 areas. With the advent of new technologies in lighting along with unregulated real estate development, unpolluted night skies are retreating further and further away from most people. So you need time and money to get away from light polluted urban areas, and this is another thing that increasing income and wealth inequality will worsen. Griffith Park observatory used to have a completely darker and beautiful night sky. California is renowned for environmentalism, but light pollution is something few in San Francisco or Los Angeles care about or even aware. It's a cultural issue of ignorance for most Americans, Europeans, Chinese, etc. Here in TX, McDonald's observatory is seeing deteriorating night skies thanks to light pollution from oil & gas activities nearby as well as unregulated (wrt lighting) cities.

"And if traveling far distances is an issue, many universities in the United States have observatories on campus that offer public viewing hours." This is true, though the funding of these on-campus observatories, which are useful mainly for public outreach and training future astronomers on basic instrumentation, is often tenuous. There are however many hundreds of astronomy clubs which are listed on the Sky and Telescope web site, and every one of them, so far as I know, hosts free public events. And amateurs scope owners typically keep their telescopes in working order. A telescope need not be in a dome to work. I have been at outreach events where the telescope in a dome had a long snaking line while outside the local club had set up an array of instruments that all outperformed the broken public university instrument. Instruments from three to twenty five inches can offer astounding views. It helps to be in a good sky with low light pollution. So the views at The Los Angeles Astronomical Society's Frazier Park free outreach events, 90 minutes north of L.A., greatly exceed those at the Griffith Observatory. But there, in the depths of L.A., you can see moon craters and the rings of Saturn. There's really no such thing as a *bad* view, but once you've got your feet wet in a light polluted locale, you may want to try again at a more remote site.

If you go to Mauna Kea, make sure you drive to the summit in a four-wheel drive vehicle. The vehicle needs to be robust at 14,000 feet (engine air intake etc.) Astronomers heading up the road to observe at night are not going to want to stop to help you if you break down; their observing time is extremely precious (it is very limited, and they may have applied for it a year+ in advance). Also, if you are on the summit at night, be careful with car headlights; astronomers use the hazard flashers as headlights shining directly into a telescope dome could destroy light-sensitive and very expensive instrumentation. Make sure you stay hydrated. Don't overeat. Do not go Scuba diving for at least 24 hours after visiting the summit. Make sure you know the signs of pulmonary/cerebral edema (very rare to get those, but if you do you need to head right down immediately). Also, many years ago I got severely sunburned hiking down from the summit to the visitor's center (I also visited Lake Waiau where, legend has it, ancient Hawaiians disposed of newborn umbilical cords ...). Even if it is cloudy/foggy, the UV is intense at that altitude. So be careful.

Why are there no photos of “spellbinding visions of the heavens?”

Many thanks for this wonderful article. Great photographs. We learned a lot of new things.

If you could go to Atacama I would chose days without the moon if you want to watch the stars and the planets. But again the moon rise is spectacular as this place resembles Mars in many ways. Don't be fooled by those fantastic images of those huge telescopes - you will never see them(restricted access only). Since you are going that far you should also plan a trip to Bolivia across the border - I would take in as many places as you can in Bolivia up to Salar De Uyuni (red lake, green lake, Licancabor). My most memorable moment - saw the rings of Saturn in the night sky.

Now this sounds like my kind of vacation!

Thank you for this excellent article. Readers of this piece might also wish to know that the bands of Jupiter, along with the planet's Galilean moons, are easily observable with a decent small telescope even from the most light-polluted locations on Earth, including Manhattan and Tokyo. And from reasonably dark skies within the United States, the Andromeda Galaxy, over ten times more distant than the Large Magellanic Cloud, is also a naked eye object. I hope one day to travel to the Atacama to experience the incomparable skies, but stunning views of spectacular celestial objects are sometimes available much closer to home.

Thank you for this wonderful article. There is nothing so great as the simple pleasure of seeing the night sky in darkness. I remember as a child point my 2.4 inch refractor at Saturn, seeing its rings and some moons. Jupiter as well. Our own Milky Way. The wonders of the universe, spread in front of you. I remember trips to Allegheny Observatory, looking through a much larger telescope than mine, and wondering if anyone was looking back. A much simpler time, thank you for the time trip.

Be aware that local astronomy clubs and organizations put on star parties where you can go and spend an evening star gazing. I am one of the amateur astronomers who regularly set up one of my scopes with a group from my club at various locations a couple of times a month. With anywhere from 3 or 4 to a dozen or more scopes, there are few lines and you can eyeball a number of different objects in one evening. Get on line look around, and I bet you can find something.