Visions of Saturn

The Boston skyline and the bright night sky above it. The light pollution from the city washes out the light from almost 99% of the stars visible to the human eye.

         “At least we could get a view of Saturn,” my boss told me in my observatory job training as, disappointed in our inability to observe the Andromeda Galaxy, we settled upon the gas giant. The faint orange glow from the setting crescent moon barely exceeded the light pollution from Boston, which drowned out the entire sky save for that moon and a few stars. Where the brightest objects did not eclipse the skyglow, we were blind, our eyes shielded from the glitter with which our ancestors, astounded and confounded by that constant and yet constantly changing sky, established science, religion and time. 

            In my disappointment, I sat on the stool and fixed my eye to the eyepiece. Perfect seeing, excellent transparency, rings slightly off edge-on. “Wow, this is incredible. I can see five moons!” I said to Philippe. 

            Unable to distract my eyes from the view in my eyepiece (other worlds rush around this massive sphere, small dots eviscerated from my view by that massive, impenetrable, intransigent brownish gas), I recognized on the live portrait of our planetary neighbor a kaleidoscope of astronomical history. I saw the ancient Chinese references to 土星–to a planet that, due to its soil-like color, represents the stability and immaterialism of Earth. I saw hundreds of cultures who believed they could use Saturn to predict when they would die, how many children they would have, and whether their offspring would survive infancy. And I saw the very first observations Galileo made with his handheld telescope, when he discovered that the wandering stars were other worlds.  

            Saturn was just a small oblong source through the eyepiece of the CfA’s Clark Telescope, but its cultural size was far larger: The indelible impact of that small point in the sky, whose nature was unknown but nonetheless contemplated for thousands of years, extended well beyond its rigid boundaries, and took up the entire sky. For twenty minutes, I stared at Saturn without blinking, until another curiosity led me astray. 

            “This is incredible,” I told him, still reveling in my perfect, uninhibited view. “And I am so excited to start helping with public observatory nights. But there are 850 astronomers at the CfA, all more intelligent and experienced than me. So why did you choose me?” 

            “Well,” Philippe responded with defeat, “the truth is, I find it awfully difficult to find astronomers able to help out at these events.” 

            Surprised, I questioned him further, “But why? Wouldn’t you expect there to be an outpouring of support for astronomy outreach?” 

            “You’d think so. But the truth is,” he countered, “most astronomers don’t know how to operate telescopes, let alone know the sky well enough to communicate it with the public.” 

            Understanding, I did not respond. We moved on to discussions of the next observatory night and began to shut down the Clark. 

            For thousands of years, the initial wonder that inspired people to become astronomers came from the night sky. A constant sight for most human cultures, the heavens evoked an indelible curiosity in all its observers. They served as symbols for lost family members or leaders and as our first vehicles for prediction. For anyone with a desire to understand the universe, the night sky was the place to start. 

            My dad recognized this when he introduced me to astronomy. With a small four-inch telescope that we mounted to the top of our beaten twentieth-century Chevy Trailblazer, my dad pointed to the moon and lifted me up to look at it. In that moment, I became the night sky’s next victim: I was captivated, addicted, ready to dedicate my life to the night sky. For the next fifteen years before college, I cultivated my love by learning how to operate telescopes, joining amateur astronomy organizations, teaching myself and others astronomical concepts through observations, and learning amateur astrophotography. As my love for the night sky grew, I polished my ultimate goal: rekindling cultural appreciation of the night sky and, as with astronomers for thousands of years before me, becoming a servant of the sky. 

            But, for most astrophysicists today, the initial inspiration is not the night sky, but instead the astrophysicist position–the questions, the status of working a “one in a million” job, the cosmos in popular media. While this makes for good astrophysicists, it does not make for good astronomers: Astrophysicists are scientists; astronomers are connoisseurs of the night sky. Astronomers, captivated by the night sky, are able to share that sky with the world; astrophysicists, captivated by their research alone, cannot recognize astronomy as something more than just a science. 

            Coupled with the decline in “astronomers” is a decline in our popular human connection to the skies. Like many other cultural phenomena, the cultural association with the night sky has never been weaker: Astrology, while still captivating to many, is no more than a popular culture fad. The history of astronomy is scarcely taught in universities, let alone primary or secondary schools. And this collective loss of connection with the night sky has a clear perpetrator. 

            99% of the world population lives in a place where ambient light blankets the night sky, and over 80% of Americans live in places where that light pollution blocks out the Milky Way. The almost universal reality of light pollution has disassociated humanity from its once most cherished inanimate friend. Knowing our situation to be hopeless as our skies become 10% brighter each year, I can only imagine all the connections we have lost. 

We have lost that first observation of the Milky Way: That moment where, stumped, you question if that arc of coruscant glitter, a bright gray mist dividing the sky into two starry halves, is a cloud or part of the night sky. We have lost that moment when someone, laughing at your ignorance and excited to blow your mind, confirms to you that that is the Milky Way. We have lost the constellations, the thousands of years of stories that connect us to peoples of remarkably different cultures, different ages, different peoples, different ideologies and identities. We have lost the stories of the 二十八宿 (the Twenty-Eight Mansions), of the Four Symbols, of the Chinese cosmological obsession with balance and their detailed observations of 彗星 (comets). We have lost the symbolism of the Greek constellations with the Greek climate. We have lost the observations of Galileo, of Copernicus, of Brahe, of Alhazen, of Aryabhata, of the Aztecs and Hindus and Kenyans and Ancestral Puebloans and Indonesians. We have lost this night sky, unchanging in our lives, similar and the same for all living under it, the only physical connection between disconnected cultures outside of the very Earth we live upon, to our desire for well-lit streets. 

The night sky is the richest archaeological site in the universe, and that site has faded from almost everyone’s view. As the natural science that is perhaps most connected with our collective cultural history, the study of astrophysics is predicated on the cultural knowledge of astronomy’s forbearers: Without astronomy, I fear that astrophysics, too, will be relegated to just a science. 

As Philippe and I shut down the Clark Telescope and returned to the Center for Astrophysics’ warm confines, I could not control the growing feeling of dread that I felt as, walking down, I saw grad students glued to their computer screens. As I passed them, I worried that their passion would forever be scientific, deprived of the cultural appreciation for the night sky that I grew up with. And I feared that, as I began to dedicate myself to full-time research, the same would happen to me. 

As I walked home, I took one last look at that washed out night sky, remembering all the navigators, all the indefatigable observers, all our ancestors who made the night sky their lighthouse, the home of those they lost, the holy site of their cultural identity, and the base for which, in the toil and unpredictability of their daily lives, they could find their way. While I could still faintly see our ancestors, I could see that they and all their lessons for us were gradually fading out of our view. Returning to the ground, I cast my eyes once again at a street awash in light, and continued my walk home.