Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy 6 (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

ORGANIZATIONS AND STRATEGIES IN ASTRONOMY 6 ASTROPHYSICS AND SPACE SCIENCE LIBRARY VOLUME 335 EDITORIAL BOARD Chairm...

Author: Andre Heck

97 downloads 836 Views 5MB Size Report

This content was uploaded by our users and we assume good faith they have the permission to share this book. If you own the copyright to this book and it is wrongfully on our website, we offer a simple DMCA procedure to remove your content from our site. Start by pressing the button below!
Report copyright / DMCA form

DOWNLOAD PDF

ORGANIZATIONS AND STRATEGIES IN ASTRONOMY 6

ASTROPHYSICS AND SPACE SCIENCE LIBRARY VOLUME 335

EDITORIAL BOARD Chairman W.B. BURTON, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, Virginia, U.S.A. ([email protected]); University of Leiden, The Netherlands ([email protected]) Executive Committee J. M. E. KUIJPERS, University of Nijmegen, The Netherlands E. P. J. VAN DEN HEUVEL, University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands H. VAN DER LAAN, University of Utrecht, The Netherlands MEMBERS F. BERTOLA, University of Padua, Italy J. P. CASSINELLI, University of Wisconsin, Madison, U.S.A. C. J. CESARSKY, European Southern Observatory, Garching bei München, Germany O. ENGVOLD, University of Oslo, Norway A. HECK, Strassbourg Astronomical Observatory, France R. McCRAY, University of Colorado, Boulder, U.S.A. P. G. MURDIN, Institute of Astronomy, Cambridge, U.K. F. PACINI, Istituto Astronomia Arcetri, Firenze, Italy V. RADHAKRISHNAN, Raman Research Institute, Bangalore, India K. SATO, School of Science, The University of Tokyo, Japan F. H. SHU, National Tsing Hua University, Taiwan B. V. SOMOV, Astronomical Institute, Moscow State University, Russia R. A. SUNYAEV, Space Research Institute, Moscow, Russia Y. TANAKA, Institute of Space and Astronautical Science, Kanagawa, Japan S. TREMAINE, Princeton University, U.S.A. N. O. WEISS, University of Cambridge, U.K.

ORGANIZATIONS AND STRATEGIES IN ASTRONOMY VOLUME 6

Edited by ANDRÉ HECK Strasbourg Astronomical Observatory, France

A C.I.P. Catalogue record for this book is available from the Library of Congress.

ISBN-10 ISBN-13 ISBN-10 ISBN-13

1-4020-4055-5 (HB) 978-1-4020-4055-9 (HB) 1-4020-4056-3 (e-book) 978-1-4020-4056-6 (e-book)

Published by Springer, P.O. Box 17, 3300 AA Dordrecht, The Netherlands. www.springer.com

Printed on acid-free paper

All Rights Reserved © 2006 Springer No part of this work may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher, with the exception of any material supplied specifically for the purpose of being entered and executed on a computer system, for exclusive use by the purchaser of the work. Printed in the Netherlands.

Table of contents • Foreword

(C. Cesarsky/ESO)

vii

• Editorial

1

• The Evolving Sociology of Ground-Based Optical

and Infrared Astronomy at the Start of the 21st Century (J.R. Roy & M. Mountain/Gemini Obs.)

11

• Building Astronomy Research Capacity in Africa

(P. Martinez/SAAO)

39

• Astronomy in New Zealand

(J.B. Hearnshaw/Univ. Canterbury)

63

• The Current State of Austrian Astronomy

(S. Schindler/Univ. Innsbruck)

87

• Challenges and Opportunities in Operating

a High-Altitude Site (R. Stencel/Denver Univ.)

97

• An Insider’s Perspective

on Observing Time Selection Committees (J.L. Linsky/JILA)

111

• Evaluation and Selection of Solar Observing Programs

(H. Uitenbroek/NSO)

117

• Evaluation and Selection of Radio Astronomy Programs:

The Case of the 100m Radio Telescope at Effelsberg (R. Schwartz, A. Kraus & J.A. Zensus/MPIfR)

125

• The Development of HST Science Metrics

(J.P. Madrid, F.D. Macchetto, Cl. Leitherer/STScI & G. Meylan/EPFL)

133

• The Science News Metrics

(C.A. Christian/STScI & G. Davidson/Northrop Grumman)

v

145

vi

TABLE OF CONTENTS

• A Citation-Based Measure of Scientific Impact Within Astronomy

(F.R. Pearce/Nottingham Univ. & D.A. Forbes/Swinburne Univ.)

157

• A Comparison of the Citation Counts in the Science Citation Index

and the NASA Astrophysics Data System (H.A. Abt/KPNO)

169

• Letters to the Editor of the AAS Newsletter:

A Personal Story (J.L. Linsky/JILA)

175

• Space Law

(J. Hermida/Dalhousie Univ.)

191

• Search Strategies for Exoplanets

(R. Rebolo/IAC)

205

• IAU Initiatives

Relating to the Near-Earth Object Impact Hazard (H. Rickman/Uppsala Obs.)

225

• AFOEV: Serving Variable-Star Observers since 1921

´ – An Interview with Emile Schweitzer/AFOEV

243

• The International Planetarium Society:

A Community of Planetarians Facing the Challenges of the 21st Century (C.C. Petersen/Loch Ness Prod.)

253

• The Hands-On Universe Project

(R. Ferlet/IAP & C.R. Pennypacker/UCB)

275

• Outreach from the Jodrell Bank Observatory

(I. Morison & T. O’Brien/JBO)

287

• Astronomy Multimedia Public Outreach in France and Beyond

(A. Cirou/Ciel & Espace)

299

• Astronomers and the Media: What Reporters Expect

(T. Siegfried & A. Witze/Dallas Morning News & Nature) • Updated Bibliography of Socio-Astronomy

311 321

FOREWORD

When I was a child, growing up in South America, I often went camping in the wild and hence had direct access to the wondrous Southern sky; the Southern Cross was all mine at the time. Little did I know then that the study of the sky would take such a huge importance in my life, and that in the end astronomy and astrophysics would in many ways become my country and my religion. I have lived in several different countries, and when asked my nationality, I am always very tempted to reply: astronomer. I started as a theorist, and my only dream in my youth was to spend nights thinking and calculating, with paper and pencil, and to have the impression by dawn that I had understood something new. So at the time astronomy was seen or dreamt by me as a solitary endeavour, with periodic encounters with my wise adviser and professors; it is this model that I adopted when doing my PhD work. My generation has lived through many revolutions of all kinds. Those in astronomy, I believe, remain particularly remarkable, and I am a true product of them. Now, I elect to live and work in large organizations, and to share my endeavours with many people. And I relish the series of André Heck on Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy, which help us recover our memories, reconstitute our own story, and read with glee about our neighbouring or far-away colleagues. Astronomy, fortunately, still remains a discipline where the interested practitioner can still, if he or she really wishes, try to maintain a broad view of what is happening, even though the pace of discoveries has become so incredibly fast. Also, as shown in this volume by the article by Pearce among others, there is still room in our field for the individual researcher to exist and leave his mark; of course, this is particularly true for those who are the most gifted, but more modest astronomers can still make an identifiable contribution. And I am not necessarily thinking of new discoveries recognized, e.g. by the number of citations, but by the intimate knowledge by the scientist that a given advance is due to his own spark of genius, understanding and/or luck. In astronomy, this can still co-exist with orgavii

viii

FOREWORD

nizations, even the large organizations which have proven to be mandatory if astronomers want collectively carry out their most ambitious projects. The other key word these days, and André clearly is a precursor here, is strategy. We are all intent on developing strategic plans, road maps, and the like. Now, what is strategy? Here, I remember that I am French, not only astronomer. Strategy is, as Napoleon well knew, “The science of military command, or the science of projecting campaigns and directing great military movements”. And this requires clear goals. At a particularly strategy focused meeting of the ESO Council, its President, Piet van der Kruit, reminded us of the words of the base-ball player Yogi Berra “If you don’t know where you are going, you might wind up someplace else”. Goals, plans . . . and adversaries? Now: one new message heralded these days by politicians and strategyprone astronomers throughout the world is: “Astronomers of the world, federate”. Astronomy is of course the most universal of all sciences, but this, alas, is not the only reason for this newly emerging consensus. Sadly, even us, ethereal beings living in heaven, have sometimes to be reminded of the value of money. The other message, the old one, remains almost subliminal these days: “Astronomers of the world, compete! ” For what is more exciting and stimulating than to try to arrive there before somebody else? Snatch a discovery? We all relish that. The solution may be what, at ESO, we call friendly coopetition. Perhaps a good subject in this series some other time! Catherine Cesarsky [email protected] ESO Director General IAU President-Elect May 2005.

EDITORIAL

A Matter of Words – No, Your Majesty, Scotmen do not wear skirts. They wear kilts. – Kilts? – Kilts. A matter of words perhaps, but words are important. – Why are words important? – If you cannot say what you mean, Your Majesty, you will never mean what you say. And a gentleman should always mean what he says. [The Last Emperor (Bertolucci/Peploe 1987)]

Scientists, and astronomers in particular, know the value of words and of their meaning, a discipline of discourse failing which no scientific rigor would be possible. The scientific microcosms, if self-consistently well-defined, may however offer interconnecting pitfalls1 , requiring people involved in interdisciplinary collaborations to agree on the vocabulary, thus avoiding embarrassing, time-wasting and occasionally dramatic misunderstandings. Substantial care has also to be put nowadays in the wording towards large audiences and, in particular, via the Internet and the World-Wide Web. Goldman (1998) explains how some web pages of Sky & Telescope had to be re-written. An expression such as “naked eye” had to be replaced by “unaided eye” or “unassisted eye” to avoid filtering by software packages considering that the site was using indecent terms and advising parents to alert the authorities against that threat to their children ... Astronomy had also to face identity issues regarding the objects it studies. The very simple structure of constellations itself had to get straightened. Because of the non-rigorous delimitation of these in the past, stars could belong to several asterisms. The star with the Arabic name Al Nath, aka β Tauri, was also named γ Aurigae in the past. A rigorous definition of 88 constellations covering the whole sky with no overlap took place only well 1 A good example is the word parameter with differing meanings in mathematics and in the physical sciences.

1 A. Heck (ed.), Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy 6, 1–10. © 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.

2

EDITORIAL

into the 20th century (Delporte 1930). Bishop (2004) published an excellent review of celestial nomenclature issues together with original proposals. To the dismay of professional astronomers, commercial companies initiated a juicy business of selling star names, an activity considered as not fraudulent by approached US lawcourts (Triplett 2000). See also on this matter the corresponding sections on the web site2 of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). In recent decades, the multiplication of astronomical catalogs and of object identifiers of all kinds made necessary the compilation of synonym tables such as CDS’ Catalogue of Stellar Identifications (CSI) and database Simbad 3 . The integration of all kinds of data through such interconnecting grounds or hubs, the ampliation to several dimensions and the hierarchization of cosmic objects required continual upgrading towards resources such as Aladin 4 and towards always more advanced digital research facilities such as those called nowadays Virtual Observatories (VOs). We already stressed (Heck 2001, 2002/OSA 3) how unfortunate such a label was, though concise and handy to ‘sell’ the corresponding projects to decision makers/takers. Someone involved in a VO project claimed thereafter that such semantic questions were irrelevant and what mattered was the work actually done. Perhaps acceptable for some, such a stand calls nevertheless for a couple of comments. First, the rigor scientists put in their work should also be applied to the way they phrase it. Second, as more than one advertizer already experienced it, even pleasant and largely adopted buzzwords can backfire; a high-ranking politician of science was commenting recently: “Why should we fund those projects, since they are virtual?” A Matter of Worlds But let’s go really virtual for a few moments, in an imaginary place called Weirdland, populated by Weirdies obeying rules edicted from the capital city, Weirdtown. A pragmatic scientist, visiting the place from an outside world, could not help being surprized by the way the Weirdic scientists were functioning. Here are a few excerpts picked randomly from the visitor’s diary: – none of the scientists in charge of institutions seems to have ever been trained in management, nor in human resources; they often behave in a narrow-minded ‘little-chief’ spirit; in fact, no difference is made between administrator, director and manager; 2

http://www.iau.org/IAU/FAQ/ http://simbad.u-strasbg.fr/Simbad 4 http://aladin.u-strasbg.fr/aladin.gml 3

EDITORIAL

3

Figure 1. Les Astronomes [The Astronomers] (1961), oil on canvas (155×255) by Paul Delvaux (1897-1994). (Private collection, by courtesy)

– the qualities of chief are rarely a selection criterion for positions of responsibilities; the process is, sometimes through formal elections though, a kind of cooptation where the common denominators are personalities avoiding conflicting situations and not risking to disturb the general routine during their terms; – the administrative structure and the resulting burden are so heavy that highly qualified scientists avoid entering the managerial career and therefore end up being regulated by less competent people – some of them having never had a single original scientific idea in their own career; – the personnel selection and promotion processes are most disturbing; under policies of transparency, it appears that many decisions are in fact taken in advance of the commission meetings, that applicants have frequently no possibility for appeal and no opportunity to get themselves heard, that rankings by commissions are sometimes mysteriously rearranged before reaching the official publication of results; – rules continually change, but not in favor of scientific criteria, getting decreasing weight over time in favor of secondary activities; contributions to the progress of knowledge and outstanding publication records are frequently less rated than confusing notions of ‘service’ including serving in commissions, i.e. favoring those very people deciding on promotions;

4

EDITORIAL

– year after year, in many disciplines, Weirdies train and graduate significantly more scientists than their system can reasonably absorb – a result of the competition between local schools and of their fight for survival, leading to numerous human dramas among the freshly graduated people; – consistent with the little-chief practice, team work is understood by Weirdies as being at the service of a person rather than for great leading ideas or projects; there are programs labeled as such, but they frequently express individual ambitions; – examples abound where immediate carreerist benefit (personal or for friends) prevails over the long-term interest of the discipline; – ethical issues are largely ignored by Weirdic scientists; ethical charters are rarely heard of, ignored or kept confidential when existing; guidelines to avoid conflicts of interest and collusions seem not to exist; close relatives or people with strong connections are sometimes holding high-ranking positions within the same organizations; – the Weirdic scientific world appears to be disconnected from reality; selfreinforcing projects engulf lavish expenses with apparently no possibility this be questioned by independent bodies; – mobility or simply changing scientific fields is frequently felt as a desertion; creativity, sometimes carried out by individuals from personal money, is discouraged as leading out of the beaten pathes and well-established patterns; in fact, in many instances, strategies appear to be negatively oriented. These were just a few points from the visitor’s diary that was holding many more comments, on publications, on education, on evaluation, etc., on which we may come back in future editorials. Weirdland was a virtual world, but could we say that, in our everyday real life, we have never been wondering one day about one of the situations mentioned above? They are not new either. In the forewords of his textbooks, Bouasse (1918) was already pointing out shortcomings and inadequacies in the professional deontology, as well as absurdities in astronomy educational policies at the very beginning of the 20th century. Much closer to us, Koestler (1973) set up, on a dramatic background of world conflict threat, a hilarious parody of academic jet-setters attending a conference in a European place easily identifiable by astronomers. A Matter of Ways Over the past couple of decades, activities grouped under the label EPO (Education and Public Outreach) have taken a more asserted importance in astronomy. The profession of EPO officer has been increasingly perceived as indispensable and going much beyond the mere distribution of nice pictures. Two major practical motivations for such an evolution can be identified:

EDITORIAL

5

Figure 2. Web pages of the IAU Working Group on Communicating Astronomy with the Public (top), the 2005 ESO/ESA/IAU conference on the same theme (middle), and the 2005 ASP annual conference on The Emerging EPO Profession (bottom). See text for details and URLs.

6

EDITORIAL

(a) the enhanced degree of competition, for public and private funding, between the scientific disciplines, between institutions within a discipline, between groups within an institution, and of course between individuals; (b) the higher awareness of the impact of public support to secure such funding, together with a better integrated concept of return towards the taxpayers. Political authorities have also put more emphasis on the educational mission of scientific organizations. EPO positions have been created and dedicated EPO offices have been set up, first in the large international and national organizations, then in structures of smaller sizes, getting sometimes the grand public involved through visitor centers occasionally equipped with planetariums5 . Quite naturally, the necessity to share experience and to coordinate efforts, initially scattered, arose subsequently. Books were published (see e.g. Heck & Madsen 2003) and conferences were organized: cf. Communicating Astronomy 6 , convened in 2002 by the Instituto de Astrof´ısica de Canarias, or Communicating Astronomy to the Public 7 , held in 2003 at the US National Academy of Sciences. The most significant outcome of the latter meeting was the elaboration of a charter8 outlining principles of action for individuals and organizations conducting astronomical research and having “a compelling obligation to communicate their results and efforts with the public for the benefit of all.” An IAU working group has subsequently been set up on the theme Communicating Astronomy with the Public 9 . At the time of writing these lines, two large conferences are scheduled in the upcoming months (Fig. 2): the ESA10 /ESO11 /IAU Conference on Communicating Astronomy with the Public 12 (June 2005) and the annual conference of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) on the theme Building Community: The Emerging EPO Profession 13 (September 2005). The title of the ASP event describes best the current situation and the lemma of the IAU working group expresses quite well the fundamental EPO mission as perceived these days: “It is the responsibility of every practising astronomer to play some role in explaining the interest and value of science 5

See for instance the following dedicated chapters in the OSA volumes: Christensen (2003/OSA 4), Christian (2004/OSA 5), Finley (2002/OSA 3), Isbell & Fedele (2003/OSA 4), Mitton (2001/OSA 2), Morison & O’Brien (2005/OSA 6), keeping in mind that the matter has also been tackled in other, more general, contributions. 6 http://www.iac.es/proyect/commast/ 7 http://www.nrao.edu/ccap/ 8 http://www.communicatingastronomy.org/washington charter/ charter final.html 9 http://www.communicatingastronomy.org/ 10 European Space Agency. 11 European Southern Observatory. 12 http://www.communicatingastronomy.org/cap2005/ 13 http://www.astrosociety.org/events/meeting.html

EDITORIAL

7

Figure 3. Histogram of the number of papers listed in the bibliographic section at the end of the volume. The top (blue) curve is cumulative. The gradient increase is clearly perceptible as well as the contribution from the OSA series since Year 2000.

to our real employers, the taxpayers of the world” – a social component that we recurrently advocated. One step further, another focus has received increasing attention from professional astronomers in even more recent times (Fig. 3): the strategical, organizational and socio-dynamical issues. Until not so long ago (and who knows why), the term “sociology” was carrying a negative connotation in hard-science circles where the only related studies were limited to bibliometric counts. As largely exemplified in the OSA series, other dimensions do exist – and the overall approach has now evolved and matured. One can already see, or at least hope for, the time when, in turn, a dedicated slot will be devoted too to those activities in our discipline; when students and young scientists will hear, with the proper semantics of a real world, not only of productivity and impact, but also of ethical issues, of constructive management, of long-term strategies, of responsibility and return towards the society at large, of the rˆ ole and position of astronomy towards mankind, not to forget the description of organizational structures and contexts – a range of matters that accomplished scientists themselves, sometimes with their minds isolated in crystal spheres, do not apprehend always in the best way. The OSA Books series This book is the sixth volume under the title Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy (OSA). The OSA series is intended to cover a large range

8

EDITORIAL

of fields and themes14 . In practice, one could say that all aspects of the astronomy-related context and environment are considered in the spirit of sharing specific expertise and lessons learned. The individual volumes are complementing each other, also in synergy with the directories StarGuides and databases StarPages of organizational and individual data (Heck 2003 & 2004). Thus this series is a unique medium for scientists and non-scientists (sometimes from outside astronomy) to describe their experience and to discuss points on non-purely scientific matters – often of fundamental importance for the efficient conduct of our activities. This book This book starts with an essay by J.R. Roy & M. Mountain on the evolving sociology of ground-based optical and infrared astronomy at the start of the 21st century. Then a group of chapters review the organization of astronomy in various parts of the world: – in Africa, by P. Martinez, – in New Zealand, by J. Hearnshaw, – in Austria, by S. Schindler, Next, the specific case – in terms of opportunities and operational challenges – of a high-altitude site is discussed by R. Stencel. The three following chapters deal with the selection of observing time proposals: J.L. Linsky shares his personal experience in various ad hoc committees while the procedures for selecting solar and radioastronomical programs are discussed by H. Uitenbroek and R. Schwartz et al. for the respective examples of the Dunn Solar Tower (National Solar Observatory, USA) and the Effelsberg 100m radiotelescope (Max-Planck-Institut f¨ ur Radioastronomie, Germany). Several contributions then detail evaluation means: – the Hubble Space Telescope science metrics, by J. Madrid et al., – the Science News metrics, by C.A. Christian & G. Davidson, – a citation-based measure developed by F. Pearce & D.C. Forbes, while H.A. Abt compares citation counts from the Science Citation Index and the NASA Astrophysics Data System. Next, J.L. Linsky tells us the story of the Letters to the Editor published in the Newsletter of the American Astronomical Society distributed to some 6500 members world-wide15 ; J. Hermida offers a panorama of space laws; R. Rebolo reviews the search strategies for exoplanets and H. Rickman 14 15

See for instance http://vizier.u-strasbg.fr/∼heck/osabooks.htm The astronomical professional journals have a much lower circulation!

9

EDITORIAL

describes the initiatives taken by the International Astronomical Union on impact hazards from near-Earth objects. In the following chapters, E. Schweitzer recalls the services provided to the whole professional community by the French Association of Variable Star Observers (AFOEV) and C.C. Petersen recapitulates the structure and activities of the International Planetarium Society, as well as the challenges it currently faces. The next three contributions deal with education and public outreach: – R. Ferlet & C. Pennypacker, on the Hands-On Universe Project; – I. Morison & T. O’Brien, on the past, present and future EPO activities at Jodrell Bank Observatory (UK); – A. Cirou, on his multimedia outreach towards French-speaking audiences. Finally, T. Siegfried & A. Witze provides sound indications on what media people are expecting to report efficiently on our activities. The book concludes with the updated bibliography of publications relating to socio-astronomy and to the interactions of the astronomy community with society at large. Acknowledgments It has been a privilege and a great honor to be given the opportunity of compiling this book and interacting with the various contributors. The quality of the authors, the scope of expertise they cover, the messages they convey make of this book a natural continuation of the previous volumes. The reader will certainly enjoy as much as I did going through such a variety of well-inspired chapters from so many different horizons, be it also because the contributors have done their best to write in a way that is understandable to readers who are not necessarily hyper-specialized in astronomy while providing specific detailed information and sometimes enlightening ‘lessons learned’ sections. I am specially grateful to Catherine Cesarsky, Director General of the European Southern Observatory and President-Elect of the International Astronomical Union, for writing the foreword of this book and to the various referees who ensured independent and prompt reading of the contributions. Finally, it is a very pleasant duty to pay tribute here to the various people at Springer who are enthusiastically supporting this series of volumes. The Editor Pico de Tres Mares May 2005

10

EDITORIAL

References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

Bertolucci, B. & Peploe, M. 1987, The Last Emperor, film, Artisan Entertainment. Bishop, J.E. 2004, How Astronomical Objects are Named, The Planetarian 33/3, 6-24. Bouasse, H. 1918, Astronomie Théorique et Pratique, Librairie Delagrave, Paris, xxix + 630 pp. Christensen, L.L. 2003, Practical Popular Communication of Astronomy, in Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy – Vol. 4, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht, 105-142. Christian, C.A. 2004, The Public Impact of the Hubble Space Telescope: A case Study, in Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy – Vol. 5, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht, 203-216. Delporte, E. 1930, Délimitation Scientifique des Constellations (Tables et Cartes), Cambridge Univ. Press, 44 pp. + 26 maps. Finley, D.G. 2002, Public Relations for a National Observatory, in Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy – Vol. 3, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht, 21-34. Goldman, S.J. 1998, Watch Your Language, Sky & Tel. 95/3, 69. Heck, A. 2001, Virtual Observatories or Rather Digital Research Facilities?, Amer. Astron. Soc. Newsl. 104, 2. Heck, A. 2002, Editorial, in Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy – Vol. 3, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht, 1-10. Heck, A. 2003, From Early Directories to Current Yellow-Page Services, in Information Handling in Astronomy – Historical Vistas, Ed. A. Heck, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht, 183-205. Heck, A. 2004, StarGuides Plus – A World-Wide Directory of Organizations in Astronomy and Related Space Sciences, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht, xii + 1140 pp. (ISBN 1-4020-1926-2) Heck, A. & Madsen, C. (Eds) 2003, Astronomy Communication, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht, x + 226 pp. (ISBN 1-4020-1345-0) Isbell, D. & Fedele, R. 2003, Outreach at Kitt Peak Visitor Center: Techniques for Engaging the Public at a Major Observatory, in Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy – Vol. 4, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht, 93-104. Koestler, A. 1973, The Call-Girls: A Tragi-Comedy, Random House, New York, 167 pp. (ISBN 0-3944-8435-5) Mitton, J. 2001, Working with the Media: The Royal Astronomical Society Experience, in Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy – Vol. 2, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht, 239-256. Morison, I. & O’Brien, T. 2005, Outreach from the Jodrell Bank Observatory, this volume. Triplett, W. 2000, Astronomers Silenced in Star-Name Wars, Nature 406, 448.

THE EVOLVING SOCIOLOGY OF GROUND-BASED OPTICAL AND INFRARED ASTRONOMY AT THE START OF THE 21ST CENTURY

JEAN-RENE ROY AND MATT MOUNTAIN

Gemini Observatory 670 North A’ohoku Place Hilo HI 96720, USA [email protected] [email protected]

Abstract. By looking back at the last half century and beyond, an understanding emerges in the patterns and influences of the social, fiscal and institutional development of astronomical institutions and observatories. In this paper, the authors1 review many changes that have transformed how astronomers build and use their “great telescopes”; they also examine the evolving process that maximizes the productivity and impact of undertaking modern ground-based optical/infrared astronomy. The integration of modern engineering and experimental practices, broadened access to largescale funding and international competition, all have a role in these changes. A changing social paradigm has moved these ventures from the scientific elite into the realm and structure of tightly managed projects involving close partnerships between engineers and scientists. Astronomer’s observational methods have changed in fundamental ways as well, driven by the complexity of the instruments used and their tremendous cost. The conclusion of this paper is that optical/infrared ground-based astronomy is in transition. “Hundred-million-dollar-scale” 8m to 10m telescopes have been erected and now our communities have billion-dollar-scale ambitions. To realize these ambitions, the same communities need to relinquish cherished notions of individual and even institutional dominance and merge into large, productive consortia consisting of institutions and multi-national agencies.

1 Matt Mountain is now at the Space Telescope Science Institute, Homewood Campus, 3700 San Martin Drive, Baltimore MD 21218, USA.


12


1. Introduction Astronomy has undergone a huge “societal transformation” in recent decades. Until the latter half of the 20th century, the building and use of the so-called “great telescopes”, such as the Yerkes forty-inch refractor or the Mount Palomar 5m telescope in the US, were the preserve of a tight-knit, seemingly elite group of scientists – the endowed astronomers. Entry to this unique society was through prestigious institutions. These were, for example, the large private observatories in the United States; the best known are the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatories of the Carnegie Institution of Washington, the Lick Observatory at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and to a lesser degree, prestigious east coast and central states institutions like the University of Chicago (which operates the Yerkes Observatory) and the University of Texas (which operates the McDonald Observatory). In Europe, the traditions were more deeply rooted in the past. Lead institutions were a mix of many prestigious national observatories like, among others, the Observatory of Paris-Meudon (France), the Royal Greenwich Observatory and the Royal Observatory of Edinburgh (United Kingdom), the Hamburg-Bergedorf Observatory (Germany). The task of erecting these great telescopes and the protocols of observational astronomy were both considered unique and exclusive skills of this rarefied group. Even in the late 1960s, when the United States National Science Foundation tried to broaden participation in ground-based optical astronomy by providing the first federally funded telescopes, the designs and utilization were based on (and constrained by) the cultural traditions and prejudices of this entrenched group. As we will show, astronomers at new national institutions found that trying to free themselves from the confines of the past “hierarchical wisdom” on how to build telescopes was difficult. This was an era when university scientists and astronomers (in contrast to working in close partnership with engineers) still played a dominant role in imposing the design and technical approach to be applied. Modern engineering and (by then) experimental practices already in use, or under consideration, at large scientific facilities such as particle accelerators or the emerging radio and space-based telescopes, were not yet part of common practice. However, broadened access to modern telescopes (albeit still restricted largely to researchers of the “endowed” observatories and academic astronomers of an increasing number of universities with an astronomy program) was made possible by increased government funding of these facilities. Combined with the rise of competition from both Europe and Japan in the building of “Very Large Telescopes” (today, 70% of the capital in-

THE EVOLVING SOCIOLOGY

13

vestment in 6m to 10m facilities has been from outside the US), broader funding opportunities have transformed the way these telescopes are now built and used. Finally, traditional observing with a major telescope was once the preserve of “lonely” astronomers whose heritage put the highest regard on the assumption of the unique “added value” a skilled observer brings to the whole process. Nowadays teams of specialists are re-defining the way we use our telescopes. This paper discusses these changes, both as they apply to the current generation of 8m to 10m facilities, and how the sociology of future communities of ground-based telescope builders and users will change with the emergence of 20m to 100m “Extremely Large Telescopes” over the next few decades. 2. The Societal Drivers for Funding Telescopes How do we justify spending hundreds of millions of dollars to look at the stars? It is mind-boggling to consider how astronomers have managed to sell astronomy and astrophysics to the public. This esoteric-seeming science produces spectacular pictures of stars and galaxies but appears to have no other spin-offs beyond new knowledge about things we will never touch. As we discuss later in this article, there are spinoffs and mutual technological developments from astronomy that also benefit society. Still, a great part of astronomy’s popularity is due to the community’s passion for understanding the universe and sharing its discoveries with the public. Astronomers also now routinely use advances in communication technology (such as posting spectacular images and data on Web pages) to distribute their work, and have learned to mobilize key individuals, groups and organization to help promote their research and their telescopes. How do astronomers “sell” a project? What drives the funding of astronomy in modern societies? Well into the second half of the 20th century, astronomy institutions and observatories were constrained by historical narrow definitions and viewpoints of what such institutions should be and do. The duty and role of the observatory director, an individual generally entrusted with significant power, were to continue the tradition; this was often successful but sometimes at high costs and at the expense of innovation. Several ambitious, often wasteful, eclipse expeditions were mounted and just too many new telescopes were built in poor quality observing sites. Hundreds of telescope instruments were built that produced a trickle of noimpact publications. These ventures were perhaps acceptable in a climate of relative academic freedom, loose and/or permissive internal evaluation criteria and limited competition on resources, because each member or group

14


had a “right to a share” of institutional resources. Nowadays, wasted resources cannot be hidden behind successes. The funding environment has changed for all disciplines, including astronomy. An intricate approach helps to define the background in justifying new spending. There are four motivations that modern astronomers use to attract and justify funding for large initiatives like new telescopes. They are: the quest for knowledge, the quest for achievement, the quest for survival, and the quest for power. This set of motivations was originally proposed by R.W. Schmitt (1994). They are cast broadly and can be applied to most fundamental and applied sciences. The relative importance of these four motivators can be adjusted depending on the scale of the project, the nature of the competition, and the budget “envelope” of the funding organization. These drivers are also used to justify the continuing operation or salvage of existing facilities. These categories also help us understand how astronomers develop strategies to get funding for advanced projects in a world where the fulfillment of many other more basic societal needs clamor for the attention of our politicians. 2.1. THE QUEST FOR KNOWLEDGE: A PHILOSOPHICAL DRIVER

A facility is built, an experiment conducted, or research accomplished to satisfy the fundamental human urge to understand the universe, explain its origin, and reconstruct its evolution. Supporting arguments draw extensively on our natural curiosity and a general desire to understand the world around us. To satisfy our restless minds, we daringly attempt to answer many basic questions: where do we come from? how big is the universe? did the universe have a beginning? how old is it? are we alone? what is the origin of life? what is the fate of the universe? The drive to answer these key questions – to “make the science case” – is not new. Nevertheless, the context is much more critical than it was in decades past. An informed public, astute politicians, and pressure to justify research expenditures all compel astronomers to express their goals in clear, well-stated “Big Questions.” This is not bad, but it can lead to an erroneous assumption that when the questions are answered, the job will be done, the shop will close up and everyone will go home. A methodical effort to orient a field toward realistic goals leads to a process of research finalization (Ziman 1995). If done properly, such finalization results in a strong science case and strengthens the image of science as an ongoing process. The strategy of making the science case has been employed successfully since the 1970s by astronomers in the US to garner funding for new initia-


15

Figure 1. Panoramic view of the Gemini South telescope in Chile at sunset showing the 7-story-high telescope with open vent-gates and observing slit. (courtesy Gemini Obs.)

16


tives like the Very Large Array (VLA), the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). More recently, a group of American physicists and astronomers, led by physicist Michael Turner, achieved a stunning success through their remarkable document “Connecting Quarks with the Cosmos.” They came up with 11 fundamental questions to be answered by scientists using a host of proposed space and groundbased capabilities (NRC 2003). The science case was considered by decision makers to be so convincing that NASA, the US Department of Energy, and the US National Science Foundation have set aside $900 million to fund a range of experiments and new facilities in space, on the ground and even underground (neutrino detector facilities). On a smaller scale, the Gemini Observatory, built by a consortium of seven international astronomy communities, duplicated that approach to seek funding for a second generation of instruments to be commissioned at the Gemini facilities. This ambitious program represents an investment of about $70 million. More than 100 Gemini community members from several countries used the “big question” approach to develop a robust justification for improvements to the observatories. The result is an ambitious new instrumentation program (Simons et al. 2004). Today’s new paradigm requires full scientific justification for advanced instrumentation and subsequent boosts in operational capabilities. Astronomers must use this science case to engage public interest and trigger the enthusiasm of the key decision makers in government agencies and the politicians who must approve the necessary funding. The broad science questions and especially their answers should have the potential to make headlines in the world’s media, and allow the funding Agencies, Foundations and/or Benefactors to be acknowledged for the achievement. 2.2. THE QUEST FOR ACHIEVEMENT: AN EMOTIONAL DRIVER

A second motivation for funding research is to satisfy the need to achieve something big – to do something because it has not been done before, or doing it ten times better than before. It drives scientists to push the frontiers of knowledge, to open new areas of study, or to try new ways of doing things. Climbing a difficult mountain peak “because it is there,” walking to the South Pole because no one has done it before, or going to the Moon because “America can do it” – all are examples of emotional motivation. Astronomers can use this driver in a two-pronged approach. They can claim that a new facility will be the largest or the most optimized telescope system ever built, that it will surpass what was done before, or it will give us views of the universe never before obtained. Astronomers can also use the big questions put forth in the science case


17

to play the technological challenge card. In the new paradigm, industries become full partners in research initiatives. Astronomers promote this industrial role when proposing the development of required technologies (new lasers and optical systems, faster computers, and more powerful software). Industries need to be at the forefront of technological expertise by participating in such projects. Mitsubishi, for example, played an important role in the success of the Subaru Telescope (built by the National Astronomical Observatory of Japan). Companies are generally happy to support astronomers’ arguments and help lobby the granting organizations, since funding may fulfill their own research and development objectives. Corning Glass Works, the large American glass and ceramic company, may not make significant profits from telescope mirrors, but it uses telescope-related contracts to pursue R&D efforts that benefit other activities of the company and promote its technological leadership. Since its invention of Pyrex and the building of the Palomar 5m primary mirror blank, Corning has maintained a very successful and fruitful partnership with astronomy that has benefited both industry and science. The successful co-ventures with AMEC/Coast Steel (the Canada-based company that built the dome for the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and enclosures for several other large telescopes around the world) have made this company very supportive of astronomical projects. Its CEO has lobbied the Canadian government to fund that country’s involvement in large astronomical projects. Industrial linkage has become a necessary condition for funding large science initiatives. 2.3. THE QUEST FOR SURVIVAL: AN ALTRUISTIC DRIVER

Humankind’s needs for survival, improved quality of life, and new societal demands are powerful drivers for funding research. Astronomy is at a disadvantage since it is not an applied science and its purpose does not lead to immediate applications. Nevertheless, astronomers have been right to point out several astronomical technology-related breakthroughs resulting in useful applications and spin-offs. They range from detector technology (from the photographic emulsion to charged-coupled devices or CCDs), timekeeping technologies (positional astronomy, quasar research with long baseline radio interferometry that led to the global positioning system or GPS), to advanced image analysis techniques, the hydrostatic bearing, X-ray imaging technology in airports and elsewhere, adaptive optics in the medical field, and many others. Not surprisingly, astronomers have at times invoked the relevance of their work to protect the Earth from the most threatening danger that can face our planet over long time scales, a collision with an asteroid or

18


a comet that could wipe out humankind and most living species. There is substantial work going into the monitoring of near-Earth asteroids and the funding for such research is increasing. 2.4. THE QUEST FOR POWER: A POLITICAL DRIVER

Scientists can invoke national pride to show that their communities and respective countries are among the best performers in the world, or are in need of new facilities to maintain their leadership. They quickly link the health of their own discipline to the research environment of their countries. By the same token, astronomers in countries where their discipline is less favored use political arguments to show that getting involved in a new large observatory will bring prestige to the country’s scientific community, help it develop new technologies, and strengthen its image and visibility in the world of high technology. The emergence of Europe as a leader in 21st -century astrophysics has been stunning. European Union astronomers have developed a very powerful and ambitious plan in the past few decades to take the lead in groundbased astronomy. The purpose of building the Very Large Telescope (VLT) at Paranal in Chile has been clear all along: establish a solid world leadership position in astronomy and not trail the United States. The success of the VLT (and its next phase, the VLT-Interferometer) and of European astronomy in general, have certainly played a role in attracting the United States, Japan and Canada to collaborate with European Southern Observatory (ESO) in building the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), a nearly billion-dollar initiative, in northern Chile. The proposed European Overwhelmingly Large Telescope (OWL) is another even more ambitious and technically challenging project that Europe has decided to push to demonstrate that it is “second to none.” In these large initiatives, the science cases are big drivers, but the goal of affirming European pre-eminence and uncontested leadership is a major driver, and the European politicians are buying into the idea. States also fund astronomy projects to display their power and to increase the visibility of their institutions and industries. In this game, astronomy is at an advantage because, as noted earlier, the public holds a very favorable view of the discipline. It is also perceived as research with zero military content, which is partly untrue since the military funds astronomy projects. An example is the US Air Force Midcourse Experiment satellite that produced a map of the sky at infrared wavelengths to detect and distinguish human-made objects in space from celestial mid-infrared sources. Furthermore, support for astronomy is viewed and used by politicians as public support for funding space research and space experiments,


19

Figure 2. The Frederick C. Gillett Gemini North Telescope enclosure with open vent-gates to allow rapid thermal equilibrium with the nighttime air. The dome was constructed by AMEC/Coast Steel of Canada. (courtesy Neelon Crawford, Gemini Obs.)

20


where the scale of investments and industrial or military spin-offs are many times greater. This reasoning is most clearly summarized by former US Department of Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham’s statement in The Future of Science: A Twenty-Year Outlook, (which describes a strategy to develop a plan for research facilities costing $50 million or more in the next 20 years): “These additional world-class Office of Science user facilities and upgrades to current facilities will lead to more world-class science, which will lead to further world-class R&D, which will lead to greater technological innovations and many other advances, which will lead to continued US economic competitiveness.” 3. Continuity and Changing Historical Patterns Historically, few astronomers had the wealth to fund their observatories from personal fortune. Apart from Ulugh Beg, Edmund Halley, Lord Rosse (Charles Parsons), George Ellery Hale, and a few others, astronomers do not generally come from rich families. Furthermore, their scholarly activities generally prevent them from making fortunes, and they depend on generous donors, or the state, to build the observatories they need. To achieve their goals, astronomers have developed unique skill sets, and have been surprisingly efficient at getting funding from wealthy benefactors and from government agencies. Astronomers act as literati when they push for a better understanding of the universe, to answer fundamental questions about our cosmic origin and future. Several members of the community have been extremely effective at communicating; for example, the popularizing books of active researchers and amateur astronomers have reached a wide readership in many countries and penetrate a remarkably wide range of cultures. Some of these “scientific ambassadors” have become true media “stars.” While educational and outreach efforts have been minimal until a few decades ago, present funding for large projects almost always comes with a substantial allocation for outreach and education efforts and several observatories have established true public relations offices. Astronomers are salespersons when they push for a given project and deploy strategies to make their project the best in the field. Indeed, like almost everyone vying for public money, astronomers have to compete with colleagues in their own or other fields. Being from a relatively small scientific community, they need to make a convincing case for spending millions of dollars to benefit a few hundred users. Astronomers may dramatize the “over subscription” of observing time on existing facilities, yet most modern observatories are actively soliciting the best users to apply or are paying


21

them generous sums to use their facilities. For example, users of the Hubble Space Telescope (and of some other space facilities) do receive relatively generous funding to analyze and publish their data. This can be awkward when the relatively small size of the community indicates that there could be overcapacity. This is when astronomers play other powerful cards like strong technology drivers or the close involvement of companies in high technology development. The promotional pitch knits together several effective arguments. This “transdisciplinarity” – the coalescence of elements from a number of fields like cosmology, high-energy physics and computational physics, as done in Connecting Quarks With the Cosmos – sells well and gets funding (Ziman 1995). Finally, astronomers are the courtiers who must use the right manner to “flatter” those in power and those with the resources astronomers need to build their observatories. This has to be done with art, skillfulness and a certain degree of shrewdness. Indeed no space mission to Titan, no new large-millimeter telescope on the Atacama Altiplano, no next generation 30m telescope can be funded without generous donors or science agencies, or both. Astronomy has had a remarkable succession of benefactors: Ulugh Beg (1393-1449) who founded the Samarkand Observatory, King Frederick II of Denmark who supported Tycho Brahe, the multi-millionaire entrepreneurs Charles T. Yerkes (Yerkes Observatory) and Andrew Carnegie (Mount Wilson Hooker 100-inch telescope and Palomar 200-inch telescope), the Rockefeller Foundation (Palomar 200-inch telescope), banker William J. McDonald (University of Texas McDonald 100-inch Telescope), petroleum magnate W.M. Keck (10m Keck Telescopes) and more recently Intel’s CEO Gordon Moore (along with spouse Betty Moore) (the Thirty Meter Telescope Project). However, the newest projects have become so large that they surpass the scale of the most generous private donations and even the research budgets of national funding agencies (Mountain 2004). 4. A New Evolving Partnership and Shifting Roles: How to Deliver the Science In contemplating a 4m Kitt Peak National Observatory (KPNO) telescope “for the masses” in the early sixties, astronomers at the new national observatory in Tucson found that trying to free themselves from the confines of the past “hierarchical wisdom” on how to build telescopes was impossible (Learner 1986; Mountain 1999). This was an era when university scientists and astronomers still played a dominant role in imposing the design and technical approach to be applied (Learner 1986; McCray 2004). Federal government accountability for these public designs dictated a technological conservatism that inhibited technical innovation in the design of both the

22


KPNO and Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory (CTIO) 4m designs (Kloeppel 1983). Some US university groups, on the other hand, acted as creative factions by exploring more innovative approaches. For example, the University of Arizona put into place its Multi-Mirror Telescope, and at the University of California, Jerry Nelson began to experiment with segmented primary mirrors which would eventually lead to the Keck telescopes. Interestingly, publicly funded European institutions, perhaps because they did not have to contend with what appeared to be a hegemony of the elite US astronomical traditionalists (principally at non-federally-funded institutions such as California Institute of Technology and the Carnegie Institution of Washington), found themselves more open to experimentation on new approaches to telescope design and construction. For example, the Royal Observatory Edinburgh was able to “experiment” with a lightweight 3.8m infrared telescope (United Kingdom Infrared Telescope – UKIRT) on Mauna Kea, Hawai’i, using a primary mirror that weighed three times less than the KPNO 4m. The new European Southern Observatory began its crucial forays into active optics with its New Technology Telescope (Wilson 2003). Common-user adaptive optics systems were built and commissioned on the ESO 3.6m telescope in La Silla and on the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea in the 1990s. Perhaps more significantly, these three institutions actively encouraged the participation of professional engineers (and industry) in these design activities at a very early stage. As astronomers approached the next generation of 8m to 10m telescopes, both the technical challenges and the costs of the projects became more daunting. In parallel, the emergence of a strong partnership (particularly in the US) between the federal government and space and aerospace industries led to the development of a new technical approach. More importantly, management tools such as systems engineering and cost accountability through rigorous management for large complex projects were introduced. In the US, the traditional hegemony of university-trained scientists prevailed until the mid-to-late 1980s. In California Jerry Nelson was allowed to experiment and perfect his segmented design, and the project used teams of scientists to work on the design and frame the scientific case to raise the requisite funding. However, once the $100+ million dollar project was funded and approved, Jerry Smith (an aerospace manager) was appointed to run the entire Keck Telescopes project. Smith subsequently placed the entire activity under tight project management and system engineering controleven the Project Scientist, Jerry Nelson, worked for the project manager. A team of engineers then built both Keck telescopes, and one of the key metrics of the Keck Observatory’s success was not just that it was the biggest


23

pair of telescopes in the world, but that it had also been built within budget and on schedule. At the magnitude of this project, even private foundations were now requiring strict accountability. This was in stark contrast to most previous observatory projects where independent project management and accounting control from the start throughout the whole project had not been done. (McCray 2004 discusses this in Giant Telescopes, p. 55.) What many astronomers did not realize was that these were well-known lessons for those in the particle physics community and in the emerging field of large interferometer gravitational wave observatories such as LIGO (Galison 1997; Westphal 2001; Riordan 2001; Collins 2003). In addition, despite the emergence of large space projects, the sociology and expectations of the astronomical community, particularly in the US, were still dominated by a self-referencing oligarchy based at prestigious US universities. In fact, the discovery of significant spherical aberration in the Hubble Space Telescope was taken as evidence that the changed methodologies for building large and expensive telescopes was in fact flawed. A few years before the completion of the Keck telescopes, the Gemini 8m Telescopes Project became the fulcrum in the US of this entire transition in ground-based astronomy. Initially the US National Observatory’s efforts to build a “very large telescope” had floundered on acrimonious arguments between prominent astronomers on the correct approach to take. In order to give the project a global significance, AURA Inc. (the university consortium running the National Observatory) and the National Science Foundation brought in international partners (initially the United Kingdom and Canada). Since Gemini was proposed to have two 8m telescopes, one in each hemisphere (on Hawai’i and in Chile), cost accounting and performance became paramount requirements for this entirely governmentfunded project. Controversy erupted almost immediately as the consortium attempted to pick a technology for its primary mirrors. A team of engineers and scientists guided by a Science Requirements Document undertook the majority of the early design work. They were required to work to a tight, fixed budget. After a competitive procurement, this team selected a meniscus mirror technology. This was also the technology choice of the four European VLTs. Gemini, along with the Japanese 8m Subaru telescope project, had selected their meniscus mirrors from Corning Glass Works. (As mentioned earlier, Corning had a long tradition of providing telescope mirrors and developed unique glass technologies for this application.) Nevertheless, part of the US telescope establishment expected Gemini to use mirrors developed by the University of Arizona Mirror Laboratory. An independent inquiry was called, followed six months later by an extensive public design review of the project’s chosen design approach. At the inquiry, much was made of the then recent Hubble Space Telescope

24


flaw, which many in the US community believed was the result of “engineers running away with the project.” However, at the design review, the meniscus approach prevailed. It was judged as “quite capable” of meeting the Gemini science requirements. The project proceeded using a more “corporate style” where management and systems engineering became as prominent, robust, and unavoidable as the project’s science requirements (McCray 2004). In a sign of the new paradigm of strict accountability, the entire project underwent a two-year intensive review by the NSF’s Office of the Inspector General (NSF’s auditors) after Gemini was completed. Although there was some controversy over definitions of some activities as construction, the telescope project management methodologies and delivered results were judged as “adequate” (an accolade by auditing standards). However, the management of Gemini’s instrument program (which – as a concession to the participating partners – had been run by each institution or University as a “traditional” scientific principal investigator-led activity) was judged as “woefully inadequate.” The whole ground-based sociological paradigm was firmly shifted out of the domain of telescope and instrument building as a scientific endeavor, and pushed into the realm of a tightly managed project, whose objective was to “deliver” a facility to a scientific community client on time and within budget. Gemini was not alone in following the “corporate” approach. ESO followed a very similar paradigm but with little or no resistance from the European astronomical community. The impressive VLT facilities are a direct result of this paradigm shift. As mentioned earlier, the Japanese contracted with Mitsubishi to deliver an entire 8m observatory, Subaru, to their astronomical community. ALMA is developing along similar lines for its respective sponsors. As our communities now contemplate the next generation of 20m to 100m “extremely large” telescopes, costing anywhere between $400 million and about $1 billion apiece, this changed relationship between “the scientists” and a team of engineers and project managers will become even more sharply defined. To quote from a recent article on the history of the defunct Superconducting Super Collider (SSC), “The conflicts which erupted between the high-energy physicists and engineers hailing from the military-industrial complex during the abortive construction of the Superconducting Super Collider can be understood as another episode in [the] continuing struggle and, perhaps short-lived reversion to an earlier mode of social and political organization of the scientific enterprise. At the multi-billion dollar scale of the SSC (roughly equivalent to the Manhattan Project in constant dollars), powerful forces came back into play that had not figured at the hundred-million-dollar


25

scale of Fermilab and SLAC [Stanford Linear Accelerator Center]” (Riordan 2001) Optical/infrared ground-based astronomy is in a transition. We have erected the “hundred-million-dollar scale” 8m to 10m telescopes, and now have billion-dollar-scale ambitions. To realize them, the sociology of astronomers, as a group will need to change: they are going to have to start thinking and behaving like space scientists or post-SSC particle physicists. As the LIGO Team members discovered when they decided to build their gravitational wave detectors “like bridges” rather than physics experiments, astronomers will have to relinquish cherished notions of individual and even institutional dominance (Collins 2003). Private foundations or consortia of government agencies (or a combination of the two), are going to expect that as a group, astronomers will design and build their future ground-based telescopes “like bridges”-structures that do not collapse nor bankrupt the research system. 5. Shifting from Gentleman Astronomer to Experimental Team In the opening chapter of the remarkable book Image and Logic, Peter Galison (1997) describes a meeting of particle physicists in 1976 where the physicists were decrying the use of “computers” to scan their plates, and the growing reliance on “data pipelines and archives” to do their science. As a field, observational astronomy is on the cusp of a similar change, both in the way observations are now being done, and in the whole sociology of what constitutes “an observation.” 5.1. CLASSICAL VERSUS QUEUE OBSERVING

Traditionally, observing with a major telescope was the preserve of astronomers whose heritage consisted of lonely nights, perseverance, and an assumption of the unique “added value” a skilled observer brings to the whole process. In addition, there was a considerable degree of “self worth” associated with observing successfully with “a cantankerous machine,” (McCray 2003) tinged with a not-insignificant element of romanticism. As technology has improved telescope performance, the actual delivered sensitivity of a telescope has become a strong function of atmospheric conditions (Mountain et al. 1995). For example, the value of the atmospheric seeing (the width of a delivered image to the telescope focal plane) determines the time to complete a certain class of observations, which is inversely proportional to the square of the seeing value. This can vary dramatically over a single night. In modern 8m to 10m-class telescopes, it is not unusual for the seeing on some nights to change by factors of 2 or 3, changing the required

26


integration time by factors of between 4 and 10. Interestingly, even back in the 1930s it was recognized that “ ... weather and the general seeing conditions didn’t always pay attention to the plans of astronomers and the allocation committee. In the brainstorming sessions [in 1931] the astronomers asked if the telescope could be switched from one focus point to another in minutes rather than hours, so the balance of the night could be put to profitable use.” (Florence 1995, p. 186) Similarly more than 50 years later, while planning the Keck telescope, Sandra Faber wrote: “... both the designs and scheduling of large telescopes should be flexible enough to allow quick changeovers to programs that can benefit from good seeing. Adherence to this goal will, I believe, necessitate substantial changes in the operating philosophy in use at most observatories.” (Faber 1984) Perhaps the most fascinating characterization of traditional astronomical “best practices” is this: within the community of optical/infrared astronomers, up until the last decade, no fundamental changes had been made to the way observatories were organized or the manner in which observations were done since Tycho Brahe in the 16th century! Astronomers had been going to their telescopes in similar ways and with identical attitudes for almost four centuries. In many aspects, it was a robust and productive model. Astronomers had the “right to” or were allocated a fixed number of nights, and took their chances with the weather and atmospheric conditions. The traditional orthodoxy said that astronomers were essential to the mechanics of observing, despite that fact that many hours (or nights) could be lost because conditions were not matched to the observer’s expectations. Telescope time became a currency in its own right. The pressure on modern observers was compounded by the growing complexity of the instruments that gathered the photons delivered by telescopes. In an almost forgotten study that monitored the efficiency of visiting observers at the 3.6m Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea, researchers found that there was a considerable increase in the observer’s efficiency (as measured by the ratio of time actually collecting data compared to the elapsed time) as the observer progressed through consecutive nights of a run. Most observers to a highly oversubscribed telescope such as the CFHT visited the telescope perhaps no more than once or twice a year, resulting in a considerable learning curve during each return visit (Glaspey 1996). The advent of major federally and government-funded facilities such as the Gemini Observatory and ESO’s VLT, which support communities mea-


27

Figure 3. The Gemini North instrument cluster fully populated on its five instrument ports. Multiple on-call instruments allow for adaptive scheduling to better match sky conditions and variables such as moon phase and atmospheric water vapor levels. (courtesy Gemini Obs.)

28


sured in thousands, has allowed astronomers to explore new approaches to data-gathering with ground-based facilities. Growing experience with space-based facilities has also contributed to a change of attitudes. The realization that observations are best done when they are matched to conditions, and that skilled resident observers can use the telescope and their instruments quite routinely at higher efficiency levels has led to the whole concept of queue or service scheduling. In this mode, astronomers submit well-described observing programs using a Web-based form. After successful review by a time allocation committee, the principal investigator and a team of collaborators prepare a detailed plan of the observations through an electronic observing tool, generally well ahead of the actual observations. At the scheduled time, a resident observer takes the data on behalf of the astronomer. The requesting astronomer then accesses the data via an online archive. In addition, science archives that contain not only the science images but also an impressive metadata database have become essential components of major modern observatories. When the Gemini community first discussed this mode of operation in 1995, there was considerable emotional debate on the value of “innovation” at the telescope, and the need to keep the astronomer involved at all levels in the mechanics of observing (reminiscent of the anguish felt when the particle physics community discussed the same issue). This is despite the fact that one of the most successful telescopes of all time, the Hubble Space Telescope, has operated exclusively in this remote and queued observing mode. Ultimately the Gemini community agreed that only 50% of the telescope time should be queue scheduled, with the remaining 50% classically scheduled. This would allow visiting astronomers to come to the facilities and use the instruments directly. Interestingly, with the advent of software tools that allow users to plan observations in fine detail, both ESO and Gemini have found that it is now quite difficult to persuade astronomers to come and use their telescopes for a few nights of classical time. The critical dependence on observing conditions, the increasing complexity of the observing process, and a rising level of community comfort with the whole concept of queue and “internet observing” (particularly when one considers the inconvenience of missing teaching responsibilities and/or one’s family for a few nights of variable conditions) has produced a significant shift in the whole sociology of observing with large ground-based facilities such as Gemini or the VLT. Moreover, astronomers now have a significant “marketplace” of data products, ranging from space telescopes like HST, Chandra or Spitzer, to online data archives and queued or classical observations from many large ground-based telescopes. The data no longer “belong” to the principal investigator, but to the whole community and the observing process is now defined to ensure a fully calibrated and


29

self-sufficient archivable data set. The science archives are not a data “mortuary” but an active component of an extremely dynamic data handling system that leads to new discoveries and is open to the whole world. However, there are still a very significant number of major telescopes (for example, the twin 6.5m Magellan and 10m Keck telescopes) that do not utilize the concept of queue observing nor archiving their data. Even though a single night on Keck costs ∼$1/second, traditional values and “ownership of a night” strongly prevail within its user community. The high citation impact of Keck-based papers encourages this community to follow the older model. However, VLT, Subaru, HET and Gemini have recently come online with their “new paradigm” approach and Keck is no longer the only option. Time will tell which method will prevail. In the end, it may well be that the astronomical community will benefit from both of these approaches. In the latest Gemini proposal rounds, less than 10% of the total time requested was for classical time. From Gemini’s perspective, the market has spoken. As we contemplate future 20m to 100m facilities, the choices governing the way we observe will become even starker. Globally we are currently spending well in excess of $100 million per year to use large facilities. These costs are spread out across at least 14 facilities in the 6m to 10m class with 365 nights apiece. It is unlikely that we are going to see this many 20m to 100m telescopes. If we assume optimistically that three will be built, it would not be unreasonable to estimate the operational costs for these to scale roughly in the same proportion as the capital costs. Even if we can squeeze these three facilities into budgets no larger than what has been spent in the last 10 years (i.e., $1.7 billion), our cost per night goes up by 14/3, or almost a factor of five. This is the curse of only having 365 nights per year. It is hard to imagine that any foundation or agency called upon to spend about $4-$5/second on a night of observing will not expect every second to be accounted for and used productively, as is the case today with particle accelerators. Imagine these facilities combined with increasingly complex machines: telescopes with thousands of segments, multi-laser guide star adaptive optics, sophisticated scheduling algorithms to minimize wind buffeting, huge detectors and instrumentation infrastructure. Add in the use of more remote sites and the emerging success of meteorological models at major observatory sites predicting atmospheric conditions 24 to 48 hours into the future (Businger et al. 2003). Suddenly the operational difference between the Hubble Space Telescope and a 20m to 100m telescope begins to appear insignificant to around 90% of prospective users. Perhaps more crucially this difference may be indistinguishable to 100% from the points of view of funding foundations and agencies. The old-fashioned “gentleman astronomer,” the lonely observer who sits on the mountain in solitary splendor doing a classical observation will become, as one senior

30


US astronomer quipped recently, “as hard to find as sheriffs in small town America” (Strom 2003). 5.2. THE EMERGENCE OF THE MULTI-DISCIPLINARY EXPERIMENTAL TEAM

The January 10, 2004 edition of Astrophysical Journal Letters was devoted entirely to the Great Observatories Origin Deep Survey (GOODS) project, a multi-telescope space and ground-based project devoted to observing the same celestial field at multiple wavelengths. The first paper in the series had 57 authors; the project described in the following 19 papers was the collective endeavor of a large team unlike anything seen before in groundbased astronomy. This emerging large-team-oriented approach to modern observational astrophysics signals a profound sociological change in the way astronomers will undertake their craft in the coming decades (another example is the SLOAN Digital Sky Survey, or SDSS). The GOODS program is the collective result of all the factors discussed above: the broadening and internationalization of ground-based astronomy, the increased cost of the requisite telescopes and their operations, and the increasing complexity of the instrumentation and observing procedures at modern telescopes. These are coupled with the emergence of “internet connected teams” collaborations of specialists with the range of skills required to undertake a large project. All these factors can justify large time allocations on one or more telescope facilities spanning both space- and ground-based facilities. The recent Gemini Deep-Deep Survey (GDDS) provides a textbook example of how a confluence of skills produced an “experiment” which was more than the sum of its parts. The “redshift desert” corresponds to a relatively unexplored period of the universe seen by telescopes looking back to an era when the universe was only 3 to 6 billion years old, i.e. 20 to 40% its current age. To determine the nature of galaxies in the redshift desert, a group of astronomers from several countries formed a team to ensure that there was sufficient proposal pressure through individual time allocation committees to ensure a single large-telescope allocation. The project also enrolled a team of engineers to work on a new detector scheme to allow very deep sky subtraction (through a technique called Nod and Shuffle – Glazebrook & Bland-Hawthorn 2003), software specialists to encode the complex observing sequences, a group of “observing specialists” (staff astronomers at the observatory) to undertake the complex new observations under nothing but optimum conditions using the Gemini queue system, and a data analysis team to quickly reduce the spectroscopic data for the science team’s analysis. The result of this “experiment” (a 100-hour queue run on Gemini North under optimum observing conditions) was the detection and characterization of hitherto undiscovered galaxies in the redshift


31

Figure 4. The Very Large Telescope control room where four 8-meter telescopes are controlled on site. (courtesy European Southern Obs.)

32


desert. The results were published in 2004 and 2005 in a series of papers (Abraham et al. 2004; Savaglio et al. 2004; Glazebrook et al. 2004; McCarthy et al. 2004, Juneau et al. 2005). The key point is that each member of the team was an acknowledged “specialist” who understood how to best exploit one (or more) facets of the Gemini observing system to produce a key experimental result using a “finalized” approach to maximize scientific impact. Using this experience as a model for how the next generation of 20m to 100m telescopes might be used, it is hard to imagine a nearly billiondollar facility which can only be scheduled for 365 nights a year not being used on any one night by anything short of a team. The complexities of exploiting every second available on this class of telescope, combined with the scarcity of 20m to 100m nights, may more than justify the need for coordinated teams of specialists. However, if we also examine much of the scientific rationale for building these new machines, the grand scientific themes (framed as “key questions”) we can also make a compelling case to pursue these questions (assuming they are still important in the next decade and a half) as “experiments” on this new generation of facilities. This will not happen solely because these questions are important. It will also be the case that the instruments, (or more likely a single instrument) which may cost as much as an individual 8m telescope (in today’s dollars), will itself have been similarly justified by a “key question.” Perhaps, the instrument will be provided by an institution or country in return for access to this scale of facility, as in the particle physics model. This is not an unreasonable extrapolation from what already happens at ESO where, in return for partly financing an instrument, an instrument team receives a substantial allocation (sometime numbering in hundreds of nights) to pursue their own projects. Similarly, the delivery to Keck of the DEIMOS instrument also resulted in the instrument team, (and their collaborators) receiving 120 nights for a single project. These strategic allocations are much more than a reward; they are investments to maximize scientific benefits. 6. Conclusions As we enter the first part of the 21st century, we find that the previous ground-based optical/infrared sociology, defined as the development, structure and functioning of a once-exclusive society of astronomers, has been transformed. From a field dominated by the traditions of an elite hierarchy accustomed to being allocated individual “lonely nights” to practice “high artistry” mastering a “beautiful and cantankerous instrument” (Whitford 1977), there is now a far larger and broader society of scientists (from many fields), engineers, project managers and administrators involved at


33

Figure 5. The twin W.M. Keck telescopes which began operations with the Keck I telescope in the early 1990s. The Keck telescopes can operate remotely from a headquarters building at the base of Mauna Kea and are scheduled in a traditional fashion. (courtesy Richard Wainscoat, Institute for Astronomy)

34


all levels. In fact, the entire gamut of skills that make up today’s complex 21st -century society is part of the endeavor. Large telescopes have become multi-institutional and/or multinational. Internal forces first drove this change of philosophy and approach. Astronomers of the world share a strong common culture through their publication systems (research journals and conference proceedings), professional associations and societies, with consulting and evaluation panels that use a pool of international colleagues. The joint ventures have emerged from almost two centuries of exchanges between scientists from leading European, Asian and American institutions, the migration of scholars triggered by geopolitical changes, and the quest for pristine observing sites in distant parts of the world. Joint experiments where observatories with different capabilities merge efforts and observing time in very strategic ways, have already been successful (the SLOAN and GOODS programs, for example). Although often loosely connected, these links have become intricate and vital enough to result in a globalization of astronomy. Indeed we witness an increasing dominance of the way astronomy is done at the national level by global projects and multinational organizations. However, like global markets, the development of our national institutions sometimes has difficulty keeping pace with new funding directions and international opportunities that push astronomy toward even more ambitious partnerships. While the unification of all European ground-based astronomy under ESO has brought with it a highly focused investment in key technical talent and technology, in the US these investments are still dispersed across several, highly competitive groups. While it is true that the US tradition of “rugged individualism” in the telescope-building arena has often been successful and has leveraged substantial private or non-federal resources, 70% of the capital investment in 6m to 10m facilities has been from outside the US. The need for “de-balkanizing” the US community has never been greater as global forces begin to take their toll on the competitiveness of this vital and ingenious community. Unlike previous decades, many of the technologies required for new facilities (adaptive optics, large optics manufacturing, wind buffeting mitigation) are not currently at maturity, and will require substantial and coordinated investments to bear fruit. Contrary to previous decades, many of these technology investments (particularly those required for adaptive optics and large format detectors) will not be provided “for free” by the US Department of Energy, the Department of Defense or NASA. Ground-based astronomy in the United States is very much on its own this time around, and hence needs to pool resources. The globalization of astronomy is also strongly driven by external forces. Funding agencies are looking for strong national and international partnerships and prefer collaboration to competition. They also favor a strate-


35

gic approach that avoids duplication of efforts, encourage the merging of the best ideas and technologies, reward the mitigation of risks, and optimize investments in esoteric research areas that are out of the mainstream. The European agencies, leveraging off their collective and coordinated investment through ESO, are managing to fund their current operations at a highly competitive level (developing second-generation instruments for VLT, for example) and are playing a leading role in the design, construction and operations of the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), the most ambitious ground-based astronomy observatory ever envisioned. The overriding character of the European approach is to expend considerable effort in lining up the entire European community behind a few leading-edge projects to maximize the leveraged investment of each European partner. In contrast, the US community, guided in part by the last decadal survey, is now trying to embark on its most ambitious groundbased program in history. Even with substantial private funding, the community’s intentions to build ALMA, the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope (ATST), the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope (LSST), the Giant Segmented Mirror Telescope (GSMT) or the Thirty-Meter Telescope (TMT), and perhaps even the addition of the Square Kilometer Array (SKA), may runs the risk that their combined costs will vastly exceed what has been spent on all existing facilities so far. It would be extraordinary to see a significant fraction of the proposed facilities built outside very well coordinated international partnerships (Mountain 2004). As a project’s size grows, so does its visibility. We run the very real risk of having “no ’strategic’ escape from ever more expensive and intellectually baroque ivory towers” (Ziman 1995, p. 2051). In conclusion, this “societal” transformation of the ground-based optical/infrared community is not the result of an emerging younger generation simply “rebelling” against an establishment. It is a collective result of the enormous broadening of access to large ground-based telescopes through the entry of greatly increased government funding by several non-US players. Added to this is the greatly increased complexity of using the current generation of telescopes. Bolstered with complex technologies like adaptive optics, supported by meteorological models and queue scheduling, and coupled together through the global interconnectivity of multidisciplinary teams, we suggest that the habits and traditions of the early formative groups (who founded and built the hugely successful observatories of the past) are not useful when pursuing the ambitious astrophysics “experiments” of the early 21st century. The growing importance of accountability to funding agencies for programs that utilize space telescopes and billiondollar-scale ground-based facilities has changed the dynamics of doing astronomy on a large scale. To ensure that we continue the success of past

36


generations, we need to adopt the new model presented here. It is gratifying to see that after some hiccups, astronomers are now shifting their thinking and approach to doing their business. Acknowledgements This text is our sole responsibility. However, several colleagues have contributed to many of the ideas presented in this paper. We thank in particular Fred Chaffee, Larry Ramsey, Wayne van Citters, Bill Smith, Dick Malowe, Richard Ellis, Steve Beckwith, Phil Puxley, Doug Simons, Jim Oschmann, Hiroshi Karoji, Steve Strom and Tim de Zeeuw. We are grateful to Carolyn Collins Petersen who carefully reviewed a draft of the article and made several insightful suggestions for improvement. References 1.

2.

3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11.

12.

Abraham, R.G., Glazebrook, K., McCarthy, P.J., Crampton, D., Murowinski, R., Jørgensen, I., Roth, K., Hook, I.M., Savaglio, S., Chen H.W., Marzke, R.O. & Carlberg, R. 2004, The Gemini Deep Deep Survey: I. Introduction to the Survey, Catalogues, and Composite Spectra, Astron. J. 127, 2455-2483. Businger, S., Cherubini, T., Dors, I., McHugh, J., McLaren, R.A., Moore, J.B., Ryan, J.M., Nardell, C.A. 2003, Supporting the Mission of the Mauna Kea Observatories with Ground Winds Incoherent UV Lidar Measurements, in Adaptive Optical System Technologies II, Proc. SPIE 4839, 858-868. Collins, H.M. 2003, LIGO Becomes Big Science, Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 33/2, 261-297. Devorkin, D.H. 2000, Who Speaks for Astronomy? How Astronomers Responded to Government Funding after World War II, Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 31/1, 55-92. Faber, S. 1984, Large Optical Telescopes – New Visions into Space and Time, in Texas Symposium on Relativistic Astrophysics, 11th Meeting, Annals New York Acad. Sc. 422, 171-179. Florence, R. 1995, The Perfect Machine – Building The Palomar Telescope Harper Collins (ISBN 0-060-92670-8). Galison, P. 1997, Image and Logic: : A Material Culture of Microphysics. Univ. Chicago Press (ISBN 0-226-27916-2). Glaspey, J. 1996, Improving Observing Efficiency – New Observing Modes for the Next Century, Astron. Soc. Pacific Conf. Series 87, 72. Glazebrook, K. & Bland-Hawthorn, J. 2001, Microslit Nod-Shuffle Spectroscopy: A Technique for Achieving Very High Density of Spectra, Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacific 113, 197-214. Glazebrook, K., Abraham, R.G., McCarthy, P.J., Savaglio, S., Chen, H.W., Crampton, D., Murowinski, R., Jørgensen, I., Roth, K., Hook, I.M., Marzke, R.O. & Carlberg, R. 2004, A High Abundance of Massive Galaxies 3-6 Billion Years after the Big Bang, Nature 430, 181-184. Juneau, S., Glazebrook, K., Crampton, D., McCarthy, P.J., Savaglio, S., Abraham, P., Carlberg, R. G., Chen, H.W., Le Borgne, D., Marzke, R. O., Roth, K., Jørgensen, I., Hook, I. & Murowinski, R. 2005, Cosmic Star Formation History and its Dependence on Galaxy Stellar Mass, Astrophys. J. 619, L135-L138. Kloeppel, J. E. 1983, Realm of the Long Eyes – A Brief History of Kitt Peak National Observatory, Univelt, San Diego (ISBN 0-912183-01-2).

THE EVOLVING SOCIOLOGY 13. 14.

15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20.

21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28.

37

Learner, R. 1986, Legacy of the 200-inch, Sky & Tel. 71, 349-353. McCarthy, P.J., Le Borgne, D., Crampton, D., Chen, H.W., Abraham, R., Glazebrook, K., Savaglio, S., Carlberg, R.G., Marzke, R.O., Roth, K., Jørgensen, I., Hook, I., Murowinski, R. & Juneau, S. 2004, Evolved Galaxies at z > 1.5 from the Gemini Deep Deep Survey: The Formation of Massive Stellar Systems, Astrophys. J. 614, L9-L12. McCray, P. 2003, The Contentious Role of a National Observatory, Physics Today 56/10, 55-61. McCray, P. 2004, Giant Telescopes: Astronomical Ambition and the Promise of Technology, Harvard Univ. Press (ISBN 0-674-01147-3). Mountain, M. 2004, The Future of ELTs (Extremely Large Telescopes): A Very Personal View, 2nd Backaskog Workshop (in press). NRC 2003, Connecting Quarks with the Cosmos: Eleven Science Questions for the New Century, National Research Council of the National Academies, Natl Acad. Press (ISBN 0-309-07406-1). Riordan, M. 2001, A Tale of Two Cultures: Building the Superconducting Super Collider 1988-1993, Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 32/1, 124-144. Savaglio, S., Glazebrook, K., Abraham, R.G., Crampton, D., Chen, H.W., McCarthy, P.J., Jørgensen, I., Roth, K., Hook, I. M., Marzke, R.O., Murowinski, R. & Carlberg, R. 2004, The Gemini Deep Deep Survey: II. Metals in Star-Forming Galaxies at Redshift 1.3 < z < 2, Astrophys. J. 602, 51-65. Schmitt, W.R. 1994, Public Support of Science, Physics Today 47/1, 29-33. Simons, D., Abraham, R., Blum, R., Meyer, M., Tinney, C. & Wyse, R. 2004, Scientific Horizons at the Gemini Observatory: Exploring a Universe of Matter, Energy and Life, Gemini Obs. Strom, S. 2003, private communication. Westphall, C. 2001, Collaborating Together: The Stories of TPC, UA1, CDF and CLAS, Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 32/1,163-178. Westphall, C. 2002, A Tale of Two More Laboratories: Readying for Research at Fermilab and Jefferson Laboratory, Historical Studies in the Physical and Biological Sciences 32/2, 369-407. Wilson, R.N. 2003, The History and Development of the ESO Active Optics System, ESO Messenger 113, 1-9. Whitford, A.E. 1977, quotation from an oral history interview, 15 Jul 1977, p. 51, interviewed by D.H. DeVorkin, Center of History of Physics/American Institute of Physics Collection. Ziman, J. 1995, Some Reflections on Physics as a Social Institution, Twentieth Century Physics III, Inst. Physics Publ. and Amer. Inst. Physics Press, p. 2041.

BUILDING ASTRONOMY RESEARCH CAPACITY IN AFRICA

PETER MARTINEZ

South African Astronomical Observatory P.O. Box 9 Observatory 7935, South Africa [email protected]

Abstract. Africa has about 1.4% of the world’s population of professional astronomers. In terms of research output, African astronomers produce less than 1% of the world’s astronomical research. The problems confronting African researchers have been discussed extensively in numerous studies. In this paper, we discuss concrete efforts aimed at building research capacity in astronomy in Africa. There are several favourable factors supporting these efforts. These include a more favourable political climate than in the past, new large-scale facilities for ground-based astronomy and new partnerships for training and research on the continent. Various capacitybuilding activities are discussed as well as some of the lessons learnt from such activities.

1. Astronomical Research in Africa The illustration on the cover of the book you hold in your hands depicts 3510 distinct locations on the Earth in which some astronomy-related organisation was recorded by Heck (2000). In that first paper in Volume 1 of this series on Organisations and Strategies in Astronomy, Heck presented geographical distributions relating to various aspects of astronomy worldwide. The striking feature in all those maps is what he described as “the desperate emptiness of most of the African continent.” African astronomy is dominated by Egypt in the north and South Africa in the south. South Africa invests more in astronomy annually than all other African countries combined. This is reflected in the scientific output, which is greater than that of all other African countries combined by a wide margin. The historical development of astronomy in South Africa, up until 39 A. Heck (ed.), Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy 6, 39–62. © 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.

40

PETER MARTINEZ

TABLE 1. IAU membership statistics for Africa as of January 2005. (Source: IAU website http://www.iau.org/) Members National Members Egypt Morocco1 Nigeria South Africa

% Members National Male Female

% Members All IAU Male Female

Male

Female

Total

51 7 4 48

6 0 0 6

57 7 4 54

89.47 100.00 100.00 88.89

10.53 0.00 0.00 11.11

0.63 0.08 0.04 0.60

0.07 0.00 0.00 0.07

3 1 1

0 0 0

3 1 1

100.00 100.00 100.00

0.00 0.00 0.00

0.03 0.01 0.01

0.00 0.00 0.00

115 7886

12 1154

127 9040

90.55

9.45 87.23

12.77

Individual Members Algeria Ethiopia Mauritius Total Members All Africa All IAU 1

Morocco has interim membership status.

1994, has been reviewed by Feast (2002). Whitelock (2004) reviewed developments in post-apartheid South Africa, from 1994 to 2004. Both papers appeared in earlier volumes in this series. In this paper we will take a closer view of the status of professional astronomy in the rest of Africa and we will review some of the capacitybuilding initiatives that have taken place in recent years. This study encompasses the 46 countries in continental Africa and the independent island states Cape Verde, Comoros, Madagascar, Mauritius, Sao Tome and Principe and Seychelles – a total of 52 countries. Of the 52 countries in Africa, only nine (viz: Algeria, Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Libya, Mauritius, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa) feature on the map on the cover of this book. No other region of the world has such a dearth of activity in astronomy. However, this map depicts not only professional institutions, but also associations, planetaria and public observatories. In Western Europe and North America, such organisations are often clustered together. However, in Africa the symbols often depict single activities, not activity clusters. A closer look at the nature of the facilities in these countries reveals that only Egypt, Namibia, Mauritius and South

ASTRONOMY RESEARCH CAPACITY IN AFRICA

41

Africa and possess operational large-scale astronomical research facilities.

Figure 1.

Political map of Africa.

The present paper focuses on the development of astronomy at universities and research establishments. Space does not permit us to broaden the scope of our discussion to include planetaria, public observatories and public outreach activities in astronomy in Africa, of which there are many. Examples of such activities may be gained from reports of national coordinators of World Space Week1 . 1

http://www.spaceweek.org/africa.html

42

PETER MARTINEZ

A good way to depict the presence of organized astronomy in Africa is to consider membership of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Fig. 2 shows IAU membership in Africa as listed on the IAU website in January 2005. The dearth of IAU adhering countries in Africa is striking. The only adhering countries in Africa are Egypt, Morocco (interim status), Nigeria and South Africa. Fortunately the IAU’s rules are flexible enough to permit individual PhD-qualified astronomers to join the IAU in their personal capacity, even if their countries are not yet ready to join as national members. Through this mechanism, individual astronomers in Algeria, Ethiopia and Mauritius are also members of the IAU. I believe it is very important to maintain this admissions policy as it reduces the isolation of scientists who return to their countries in Africa after obtaining their training in astronomy elsewhere. Table 1 depicts the IAU membership statistics for Africa as of January 2005. The total African membership of the IAU amounts to 127 persons in 7 countries, corresponding to 1.4% of the total IAU membership. The African membership is dominated by Egypt (45%) and South Africa (43%), followed by Morocco, Nigeria, Algeria, Ethiopia and Mauritius, all with 5% or fewer members. The map of IAU member countries reflects the more prosperous African nations in a Gross Domestic Product (GDP) map of the continent. The basic space sciences and their supporting technologies underpin the ability of a country to utilise space applications programmes for development. By whatever measure is employed, Africa continues to be underrepresented in the international space science community. Examination of the national membership of COSPAR reveals that only two out of fifty-two countries in Africa (Morocco and South Africa) are national members of COSPAR. Individual scientists are COSPAR Associates in 5 other African countries (Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Nigeria, and Zimbabwe). The situation is much the same for membership in the Scientific Committee on SolarTerrestrial Physics (SCOSTEP). 2. Publications as a Tracer of Activity in Space Science The IAU membership figures, though instructive, do not present the complete picture as far as the distribution of individual scientists in Africa because not all of them are members of the IAU, either through a national adhering organization or in their personal capacity. A better way to gauge the distribution of active individual space scientists is to examine the literature. The NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) database of abstracts was examined for the period 1973-1996. A total of 181 808 papers had been recorded at the time these data were received. The total number of papers


43

Figure 2. The presence of nationally organised astronomical communities in Africa is indicated by this map of IAU membership. The countries shaded blue are national members of the IAU. Morocco has interim member status. The countries shaded green are not members of the IAU but have individual scientists who are IAU members in their personal capacity.

with an African principal author or at least one African coauthor amounted to 1339, or 0.74% of the total number of recorded publications. The results are shown in Table 2. It is not surprising that the top five countries in this list are also the top five countries by GDP in Africa. Fig. 3 shows the distribution of publications in map form. Some caveats apply to the figures in Table 2: − Only papers whose authors listed an institutional address in Africa were counted. Papers by expatriate Africans were not counted. − The database in 1996 was definitely not a complete sample. The completeness of this sample is improving with time as the bibliographic data bases improve their retrospective coverage of the literature. − The abstracts mainly reflect the internationally referenced literature. Thus, publications in in-house journals with limited circulation are not counted. This is not necessarily a defect in this analysis as it imposes a de facto requirement for publications to be of international stature.

44

PETER MARTINEZ

TABLE 2. Publications originating in Africa or having African coauthors during 1973-1996. (Source: NASA Astrophysics Data System as of October 1996) South Africa Egypt Nigeria Algeria Morocco Sudan Libya Tunisia Zaire Burundi Kenya Ivory Coast Ghana Zimbabwe Lesotho Malawi Angola Uganda Benin Guinea Mauritania Mauritius

1030 190 55 14 11 10 6 3 2 2 2 2 2 2 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

77% 14% 4% 1% 1% 1%

Though it was not possible to extend the above detailed publication counts beyond 1996 in this study, it is nevertheless possible to estimate the current annual contribution to African astronomical literature. Based on my knowledge of the various research groups around the continent, I estimate an annual upper limit of about 300 publications, compared to the worldwide average of about 40 000 publications. This yields about 0.75%, which is consistent with the more detailed study above. Although more recent ADS publication data were not available in readily searchable format at the time the present paper was written, some sense of present research activity may be gained from the level of utilisation of online resources. Kurtz et al. (2005) analysed the utilisation of the ADS data world-wide as a function of GDP and they found a simple relation that ADS use per capita is proportional to GDP per capita squared. Fig. 3 of Kurtz et al.’s paper is instructive. They plot the number of ADS queries per million inhabitants versus GDP per capita. The only African countries


45

Figure 3. Publications originating in Africa or having African coauthors during 1973-1996 as listed in Table 2. The darker the shading, the higher the contribution of a particular country to the total publication count for the continent. (Source: NASA Astrophysics Data System as of October 1996)

to appear in their plot are Egypt, Morocco, and South Africa, which appear to conform to the relation (ADS use) ∝ (GDP per capita)2 . Indeed, outside of these three countries, very few scientists in Africa are aware of the ADS and the free access that it provides to the literature. For this reason, capacity-building activities should emphasise training in the use of the online tools now taken for granted as part of the research infrastructure of modern astronomy by many astronomers in the developed world. 3. Trends and Developments In spite of the rather bleak situation in Africa, the outlook for the future seems promising. The reasons for this are two-fold. Firstly, a political climate has been developing on the continent which is conducive to science and

46

PETER MARTINEZ

technology cooperation. Secondly, and more significantly, there are several new, large-scale astronomy research facilities which are becoming operational in the region. This in turn creates study and career opportunities for a new generation of African space scientists on the continent, which begins to address the issue of brain drain, related intimately to sustainable development.

3.1. POLITICAL DEVELOPMENTS

The developments mentioned above should be seen against a backdrop of increasing awareness of space science and technology issues among policy makers in the southern African region. There is an appreciation (particularly in South Africa) of the contribution of astronomy to promoting a culture of science and technology in the region, and an understanding that the skills and technologies that support the operation of large-scale astronomy facilities are precisely those that a country needs to be globally competitive in the 21st century. It is this understanding which has generated the strong political commitment to support astronomy in South Africa. On a regional level, the continent is adopting a more coordinated approach to space science and technology within the context of the Science and Technology Forum of NEPAD, the New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD 2004). The activities of this Forum include eleven Flagship Programmes, of which one is Space Science and Technology, which is defined to include astronomy. Moreover, because of the sheer volume of investment in astronomy by South Africa compared with other African countries, facilities have appeared in the sub-continent which are unlikely to be duplicated elsewhere on the continent for the foreseeable future. As part of its re-engagement with Africa following its period of isolation during the Apartheid era, South Africa has pursued scientific links with other African countries and has been a significant supporter of a number of the initiatives described in this paper. South Africa has also placed its existing and planned national facilities at the disposal of scientists from the rest of the continent. Scientists from Egypt, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mauritius, Nigeria, Uganda and Zambia have already visited South African facilities and/or sent their students to study astronomy in South Africa. These programmes will provide the human capital to develop astronomy research activities around the continent. The challenge is to create the right conditions to attract these young scientists back into their own national environments after they complete their studies.


47

Figure 4. The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) is a 10-m optical telescope based on the Hobby Eberly Telescope design. The telescope has a fixed tilt and rotates only in azimuth to access about 70% of the sky visible from Sutherland. The primary mirror comprises an array of 91 hexagonal mirrors, each 1m wide. The position and orientation of each mirror is individually controlled to form a uniform spherical primary mirror. The tower in front of the dome in this view is used to align the mirror array.

48

PETER MARTINEZ

3.2. NEW LARGE-SCALE FACILITIES

The various governments in the southern African region have taken conscious decisions to utilise the region’s geographical advantages for astronomy to develop a regional hub for astronomy and space science. Thus, Namibia hosts the international High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS), an array of four imaging atmospheric Cherenkov telescopes for the investigation of cosmic gamma rays in the 100 GeV energy range (Hinton 2004). HESS is the premier facility of its kind in the world. The Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) is a 10-m optical telescope currently under construction in Sutherland by South Africa and eleven international partners. When it is completed, SALT will be the largest single optical telescope in the southern hemisphere. Stobie et al. (2000) discuss the design of SALT and Martinez (2004) discusses the societal benefits of SALT and SALT as an African facility. In addition to these large-scale facilities a number of smaller robotic telescope facilities are coming on-line which may be accessed remotely over the internet by scientists in Africa (see for example Martinez et al. 2002). For the first time, these facilities provide an opportunity for African scientists to perform cutting-edge research on the continent and in the context of their own national environments. 4. Capacity-Building Initiatives 4.1. INTERNATIONAL ASTRONOMICAL UNION (IAU)

The IAU supports capacity building in Africa principally through the activities of its Commission 46, Astronomy Education and Development. Activities within this Commission are organised into nine Programme Groups (Isobe 2003). Space does not permit an exhaustive list of all the activities conducted under these programme groups. Instead, I will illustrate the work of some of these groups to give a flavour of the IAU’s capacity-building efforts in Africa. In countries with no organised astronomical community, Programme Group 1, Advance Development, makes the initial contact with the local scientific community through a visit by IAU representatives. This functions as a fact-finding visit to establish the baseline for further development efforts. Typically, a report of the visit is produced, along with a list of recommendations for further activities. An example of this is the author’s visit to Kenya in 2004 (Martinez 2005). After this, Programme Group 2, Teaching for Astronomy Development, sends lecturers to the developing country for a period of time. In the case of the Kenyan example cited above, an undergraduate curriculum is currently under development, with input from Commission 46 members. Once this


49

curriculum starts to be implemented, it may be necessary for the IAU to send some lecturers to build capacity in specific fields offered in the curriculum. Programme Group 3, International Schools for Young Astronomers (ISYA), holds a three-week school in a developing country in which an international team of lecturers presents a series of lectures on a specific set of topics for the school. Since the inception of the ISYA programme, activities have been held in Africa in Nigeria (1978), Egypt (1981), Morocco (1990), Egypt (1994) and Morocco (2004). Programme Group 4, Exchange of Astronomers, is designed to facilitate visits by young astronomers for extended periods to leading facilities in their fields, provided the facilities are willing to host the visitor. As of this writing, no scientists based in Africa are making use of this opportunity, though with the rise of facilities such as SALT and HESS, this programme offers an excellent tool for research capacity building on the continent. Programme Group 5, Collaborative Programmes, allows the IAU to co-sponsor and co-organise capacity-building activities jointly with other entities. An example of this is the joint COSPAR/IAU Workshop on X-Ray Astronomy, held in Durban in July 2004. Programme Group 6 distributes a regular on-line newsletter to the national liaison members of Commission 46 in each country. Programme Group 7 comprises the national liaisons of Commission 46. These persons need not necessarily be IAU members. Programme Group 8 exploits the opportunities presented by solar eclipses for visiting astronomers to engage with and educate local communities about eclipses and astronomy in general. Programme Group 9, Exchanges of Books and Journals, responds to requests of donations for books and journals. The challenge is meeting the transportation costs and ensuring the capacity to house the materials properly once they are delivered. With increasing availability of current and archival literature on-line, and with increasing internet penetration in Africa, the problems of scientific isolation and lack of access to literature will be ameliorated in time. 4.2. COMMITTEE ON SPACE RESEARCH (COSPAR)

The capacity-building activities of COSPAR are conducted through the COSPAR Panel on Capacity Building. This Panel has conducted a series of workshops in developing countries aimed at increasing the utilisation of space archive data while allowing the participants to develop the necessary skills to propose guest observer programmes on their own (Willmore 2005). The availability of large archives of data from space missions via the internet provides an important research opportunity for scientists in developing countries. The aim of the COSPAR Capacity-Building Workshop

50

PETER MARTINEZ

Programme is to ensure this opportunity is taken up as widely as possible. The workshops typically run for two weeks in a developing country – the idea being to get the participants to work on the data in their home environment. The teaching programme of the workshops includes lectures on missions, analysis software and science. All of this is brought together in a hands-on project in which participants analyse their own datasets in a project related to their own research interests. The first such workshop in Africa was held in Durban, South Africa, in July 2004 on the topic of X-ray astronomy. Twenty-six students from eight African countries participated in this two-week workshop. The students were instructed in the use of analysis software, X-ray astronomy and research techniques. The projects involved the analysis of data from the Chandra and XMM-Newton spacecraft. The 2005 COSPAR workshop will be held in Morocco on the topic of space oceanography. 4.3. WORKING GROUP ON SPACE SCIENCES IN AFRICA

The Working Group on Space Sciences in Africa (WGSSA) was founded by the African participants of the 6th United Nations/European Space Agency Workshop on Basic Space Science, held in Bonn in 1996. The mission of the organization is to promote the development of basic space science in Africa. It accomplishes its mission through the following activity areas: Promoting greater regional cooperation by facilitating the exchange of scientists and by promoting awareness of space science institutes in Africa. Promoting training and education of African space scientists through facilitating access by African students to summer schools and training programmes in basic space science and by arranging visiting Fellowships for scientists and technologists at research institutes. Reducing isolation of African space scientists by maintaining a website 2 and producing a newsletter African Skies/Cieux Africains which describes developments and opportunities. The Working Group also facilitates access to the literature and provides exposure for and promotes awareness of the work of African space scientists. Providing assistance and advice to nascent centres. This is accomplished in a variety of ways, ranging from provision of literature, to arranging tours by visiting lecturers, to provision of curriculum advice and instructional materials, to providing training opportunities for scientists/students starting up a new research group. Assistance with grant proposal writing for accessing development funds has also been provided on an ad hoc basis from time to time. 2

http://www.saao.ac.za/∼wgssa


51

TABLE 3. Membership of the Working Group on Space Sciences in Africa. Country

Members

Algeria Burundi Egypt Ethiopia Gabon Ghana Kenya Madagascar Mauritius Morocco Namibia Nigeria Rwanda South Africa Sudan Tunisia Uganda Zambia

9 1 16 1 1 1 8 1 3 2 1 20 1 15 3 1 3 38

Total

125

The scientific scope of the Working Group’s activities is defined to encompass (a) astronomy and astrophysics, (b) solar-terrestrial interaction and its influence on terrestrial climate, (c) planetary and atmospheric studies, and (d) the origin of life and exobiology. The Working Group receives financial support from foundations and institutes which support its objectives. One of its principal forms of support, however, is the time contributed freely by individual scientists. 4.3.1. WGSSA Membership At present the Working Group has 125 members distributed among 18 African countries (Table 3) and 26 members who are not resident in Africa, most of whom are African expatriates. Of course, members are not equally numerous in all countries. Many of the countries have only one member each. However, these individuals provide the seed for future growth, as they introduce astronomy into their undergraduate physics courses and inspire their students to pursue postgraduate astronomy degrees elsewhere. Exam-

52

PETER MARTINEZ

ples of countries in which this is happening are Ethiopia, Kenya, Uganda and Zambia. The challenge is to create opportunities and a supportive environment for these young scientists to return to in their own countries on completion of their studies. The geographical distribution of WGSSA members (Fig. 5) resembles the map of publications (Fig. 3) more closely than does the map of IAU members (Fig. 2). This demonstrates that the Working Group is fulfilling a helpful function in providing a forum for African scientists who wish to engage with the professional astronomy community, but who are not themselves yet ready for IAU membership. As a rule the distribution of WGSSA members reflects a map of GDP in Africa, but there are some interesting differences. Botswana is a relatively wealthy and stable country with a well developed academic infrastructure and yet there is no evidence of astronomical activity in the publication record of the past 25 years, nor are there currently any members of the WGSSA in Botswana. Another surprise is Zambia, where the GDP per capita is under $1000 and where a local branch of the Working Group has been founded at the University of Zambia with the largest number of members from any African nation. Many of the members of the WGSSA have inspired their students to pursue postgraduate training opportunities in astronomy elsewhere. The membership of the Working Group by South African and Egyptian astronomers is only a small fraction of the size of the astronomical community in those two countries, and tends to comprise mostly younger people. This is not surprising. The older scientists generally trained in Europe or North America and are internationally established and do not need the kind of support offered by the Working Group, whereas the younger members do. Moreover, because they train in Africa they also generally tend to take a greater interest in interactions with their colleagues from elsewhere on the continent. In recent years South Africa has started placing greater emphasis on improving its relations with the rest of Africa. In the context of astronomy, this translates to promoting awareness of, and providing access to, South African facilities for scientists and students from elsewhere in Africa. Algeria, Libya, Morocco and Tunisia are among the more prosperous African countries with an Arabic tradition of astronomy and with some potentially good observing sites, yet they too are under-represented in modern African astronomy and also in the Working Group. This may be because these Mediterranean countries have links with Europe, particularly with France. 4.3.2. African Skies/Cieux Africains African Skies/Cieux Africains, the news publication of the Working Group, is a forum for communication among African space scientists, thereby al-


53

Figure 5. Geographical distribution of the members of the Working Group on Space Sciences in Africa.

lowing the Working Group to accomplish one of its principal objectives. African Skies/Cieux Africains aims to break the isolation of individuals and groups by making them aware of each-other’s existence and of their scientific and technical capabilities. African Skies/Cieux Africains publishes articles in English and French as well as conference and summer school announcements, dissertation abstracts and job/career opportunities in the space sciences in Africa. In this way greater regional scientific cooperation is encouraged. Although scientific papers are published from time to time, e.g. the proceedings of the First African Pulsar Workshop (Flanagan et al. 2002), it is not the aim of this publication to become an African astronomical journal. Instead, it aims to provide information of use to the wider African community. An example of this was an extensive article by Eichhorn (2003) on the use of the ADS system, with a special section on e-mail queries of the ADS for scientists not able to access the ADS via the usual web browser interface. African Skies/Cieux Africains is an internationally registered periodical publication (ISSN 1027-8339) with a circulation of over 1500 copies. All articles are listed in the NASA ADS system, as well as being available

54

PETER MARTINEZ

online on the website of the Working Group. The magazine is produced the South African Astronomical Observatory (SAAO) in Cape Town and distributed via airmail by the United Nations Office of Outer Space Affairs in Vienna. The circulation list includes individual scientists, university deans and presidents, department and institute heads, institute libraries, astronomical societies, general scientific societies and international scientific organizations, such as the International Astronomical Union (IAU), the International Council of Scientific Unions (ICSU), etc. Distribution is free of charge to the recipients. 4.3.3. Promoting Networking In 2001 the Working Group on Space Sciences in Africa and the South African Astronomical Observatory conducted a pilot project to test the establishment of an African Network for Education and Research in Astronomy. This pilot operated under the aegis of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) Pilot African Academic Exchange Programme. The South African Astronomical Observatory acted as the host institution for three visiting Fellows from Ethiopia, Uganda and Zambia. These Fellows worked for six months at SAAO, during which they developed research skills in astronomy, as well as the personal acquaintances so important in scientific collaboration. They also collaborated on the development of educational resources to be used upon returning to their home institutions. The programme for the Fellowship was devised to ensure the long-term goal of establishing a sustainable network after the Fellows returned to their home institutions. The scientific programme was developed to be topical, yet accessible to physicists with little or no background in astrophysical techniques. The focus of their work was on observational asteroseismology of upper main sequence stars. This was chosen because of its scientific relevance, the availability of leading scientists in this field at SAAO, modest computing hardware and software requirements, and modest data storage and data transfer requirements. The Fellows gained considerable experience in observing with a variety of telescopes, ranging in size from 0.5m to 1.9m. An important consideration in setting up this pilot project was to structure the network in such a way that the Fellows could collaborate with each other fruitfully after returning home. To facilitate this, the Fellows were provided with computers, printers and uninterruptible power supplies. The computers were loaded with a common set of open source software tools and teaching resources. Remote access (via e-mail) to service observations on the 0.75-m robotic telescope at SAAO is available to the Fellows to enable them to continue to obtain new data of excellent quality for their own research projects. Although some research publications came out of


55

Figure 6. Past editions of African Skies/Cieux Africains, the publication of the Working Group on Space Sciences in Africa.

this pilot project, I would say that the impact has been higher in education than in research. All three visiting Fellows introduced astronomy into the undergraduate physics curricula at their institutions, and they sent their students to do masters degrees in the National Astrophysics and Space Science Programme in South Africa (Whitelock 2004). The hope is that these students will return to form the nucleus of a research group at these institutions.

5. Lessons Learnt Over the past eight years, I have been involved in a number of capacitybuilding initiatives in sub-Saharan Africa through my involvement with activities of the IAU, COSPAR and the Working Group on Space Sciences in Africa. Here I offer some of the lessons I have learnt as far as sustainable capacity-building is concerned.

56

PETER MARTINEZ

Seek out fertile ground in which to plant a seed By fertile ground I mean several things. Firstly, an adequate infrastructure (computers, internet access, library facilities, and so on) is a sine qua non of sustainable capacity building for research in astronomy. Secondly, this must be matched by an institutional environment with a supportive hierarchy. Without committed institutional support, there is no hope of a capacitybuilding initiative becoming sustainable in the long run as it will collapse the moment the external support ends or the key person(s) in situ withdraw for any reason. Thirdly, there should be cohesion and a common unity of purpose within the developing scientific community for capacity-building initiatives to take root. Fourthly, there should be a supportive (or at least non-obstructive) national environment. For example, in a supportive environment, there are means to remove or minimise administrative and fiscal impediments such as import duties on donations of scientific equipment or books. The WGSSA/UNESCO pilot programme described in Sect. 4.3.3 was undermined and weakened by such problems. Capacity building is about people, not equipment A capacity-building initiative that is based around equipment, rather than around people is doomed to fail. When contemplating the installation of new facilities as part of a capacity-building programme, it is important to ensure that the necessary human capital is developed through training in the operation, purposeful use and maintenance of equipment, before such equipment is put in place. Given the limited resources available for capacity building, an approach that works well is to train the trainers. We have used this approach to introduce astronomy into the undergraduate physics curricula at various African universities, and we are starting to see more African students enrolling for postgraduate degrees in astronomy on the continent and elsewhere. Invest in young people Capacity-building opportunities should target young people who are not burdened with administrative or other duties and have more time to drive developments from the bottom up. The same lesson applies also to the scientists doing the capacity building. Many young professionals are keen to share their expertise with colleagues from developing countries and they generally have the mobility and time to do so. The challenge to the older scientists in developed and developing nations is how to engage most effectively with the capacity-building process in such a manner as to allow their younger colleagues to achieve the desired sustainable results.


57

Capacity building is a process, not an event Capacity-building activities must be part of a long-term programme. Activities such as capacity-building workshops will not lead to sustained research activity if they are not part of a long-term programme. Hence the importance of strategic partnerships among the scientific unions, the scientific community in the developing country and the development aid sector. It normally takes several years of engagement to build up some level of sustainable activity. This requires firm commitment from all partners in the face of occasional setbacks and failures, even in the best supported scenarios. Match new facilities to education and research needs Often capacity building in astronomy focuses around the acquisition of a small telescope. Small (< 0.5-m) telescopes have an important role to play in undergraduate teaching and student training, and regular access to such telescopes by students and the public can do much to promote astronomy in a developing country. However, above about 0.5-m aperture I believe one needs to consider whether investing in a telescope is the best way to promote internationally relevant astronomical research in a particular environment. For many African countries, I would argue that a good internet connection and access to large-scale facilities elsewhere is far more likely to result in productive research than an ill-equipped telescope at a poor site. It would be better to obtain service observations from telescopes at good sites or use data from space missions. Use information technology as much as possible Information technology is a powerful enabler of research. Access to e-mail and online literature, software and data reduces isolation of scientists and makes them much more productive. For the developing world Open Source is a particularly enabling technology in the sense that, in addition to the cost savings associated with keeping software current, the accessible nature of the software leads to greater innovation and allows users to adapt it to local demands and steer their own IT infrastructure. Moreover, because the astronomy community is a heavy user of Open Source software, the skills acquired by participants in capacity-building activities can be of benefit not only to themselves, but also to their home institutions. In the astrophysics domain, most of the literature is available on-line through the NASA Astrophysics Data System (Eichhorn 2004), and large quantities of astrophysical data are available on-line or on request from a variety of data centres. This provides excellent opportunities to promote research in developing nations without needing to develop costly infrastructure in conditions that are sub-optimal for ground-based astronomy.

58

PETER MARTINEZ

Moreover, the same IT infrastructure that is required to do cutting-edge astrophysical research can also be utilised for other purposes, so the benefits of the investment are enjoyed by a much wider community of users than just astronomers. Capacity-building activities should also take into account the general level of preparation of participants. For example, hands-on capacity-building activities assume a certain degree of computer literacy on the part of the participants. However, one cannot assume familiarity with the computing environments used in astrophysics, and a carefully planned training activity is often compromised when time is lost bringing people up to speed with very basic computer skills. Better screening of prospective participants and/or precursor computer training would enhance the efficacy of such activities in future. Promote and nurture regional initiatives and facilities Regional networks represent the scientific community’s determination to organise itself and its activities. Close cooperation between the scientific unions and these regional structures can be mutually beneficial and support sustainable capacity building. Regional networks, such as the Working Group on Space Sciences in Africa, can support capacity-building initiatives of the scientific unions by organising or promoting awareness of key events, such as workshops, and by supporting the follow-up phase afterwards. Regional networks can also assist scientists with accessing facilities in the region and with accessing training and career opportunities on the continent. Africa has two regional centres affiliated to the United Nations for training in space science and technology, one in Nigeria for anglophone Africa and one in Morocco for francophone Africa. These centres form an important part of the constellation of facilities available on the continent for human resource development. Though neither centre has a component of astronomical research at the moment, such a component could be developed in partnership with astronomy institutes elsewhere in the region. Focus on solving real research problems Capacity-building initiatives (visits, workshops) often focus on equipping the participants with the skills and tools to conduct research in a given field, yet few participants go on to initiate research projects on returning to their home institutions. I believe the reason for this is that these scientists work in isolation, with no idea of what are the relevant problems to tackle. One way to address this is to structure the capacity-building activity around some area of research that the group of participants can continue to work on as a network after they return to their home institutions. Establishing networked collaborations is a good way to build up a critical


59

Figure 7. Domes of the South African Astronomical Observatory in Sutherland. The infrastructure at Sutherland has attracted a host of international facilities, the largest of which in the 10-m Southern African Large Telescope (visible in the distance with its distinctive alignment tower, slightly left of centre in this image). The other telescopes in the foreground range in size from 0.5m to 1.9m.

60

PETER MARTINEZ

mass of scientists who can support each other and produce science that is relevant and of international quality. This will require ongoing support and encouragement from colleagues in developed countries, but will yield a piece of publishable research and take the group of participants through the whole research cycle. The WGSSA pilot project discussed in Sect. 4.3.3 is an example of this. Form partnerships for capacity building Working in partnerships allows an organisation to leverage its resources with those of other organisations and to coordinate collective efforts for maximum impact. Working in partnership also introduces complications. The different organisations will have their own objectives, programmes and time-scales, but they are more likely to support initiatives that are supported by other partners as well. The types of interactions that are most likely to lead to sustainable capacity building are those that also attract the support of the development sector and/or government. A good example of this is the COSPAR/IAU Regional Workshop on Data Processing from the Chandra and XMM-Newton Space Missions, held in Durban, South Africa in July 2004. This workshop arose from cooperation between the capacity-building programmes of the IAU and COSPAR discussed earlier in this paper, with additional funding from the National Research Foundation of South Africa, the UN Office of Outer Space Affairs, the Abdus Salam Centre for Theoretical Physics and the European Space Agency. 6. Closing remarks With the advent of new large-scale facilities for ground-based astronomy in Africa, such as the Southern African Large Telescope (SALT) and the High Energy Stereoscopic System (HESS), and a regional climate of enhanced scientific cooperation, African astronomers will soon have access to some of the world’s premier astronomical facilities without having to leave the continent. From the outset, SALT was conceived as an African facility, and substantial efforts have been made to enable African scientists to be able to use SALT. Though no African countries have joined the SALT partnership, the Centre for Basic Space Science at Nsukka, Nigeria, and South African Astronomical Observatory recently negotiated a cooperation agreement under which Nigerian astronomers will be able to access the South African portion of time on SALT. It is envisaged that similar access agreements will be concluded with other countries as a means to grow the African user community of SALT. Buoyed by the successful track record in the construction of SALT, the South African government has supported a bid to host the Square Kilometre


61

Array. If this bid succeeds, the southern African region will have some of the world’s premier ground-based observatories for optical, gamma-ray and radio astronomy, with remarkable potential for the growth of multiwavelength astrophysics in the region. The capacity-building efforts of organisations such as the IAU, COSPAR and the Working Group on Space Sciences in Africa are starting to yield fruit in terms of producing a new generation of African astronomers. Working in partnerships greatly enhances the impact of capacity-building activities. In order to be sustainable, capacity-building activities should form part of a comprehensive long-term programme. Such a programme should address pipeline issues to ensure that interventions by the different roleplayers are mutually supportive and appropriately phased. In order to facilitate coordination of activities by the different organisations, consideration should be given to the establishment of a capacity-building forum. Such a forum could facilitate improved dialogue between the scientific unions and scientific institutes, the development sector (e.g. UNESCO) and the developing countries to link the players with the technical means (the scientific community) to the communities with the needs (the developing countries) through provision of support for development of infrastructure and operation of projects by the development sector. An organisation like the Working Group on Space Sciences in Africa would be well placed to initiate such a development. Acknowledgements I acknowledge with gratitude the generous support received from the following organizations for the various capacity-building initiatives described in this paper: Observatoire Midi Pyrénées, South African National Research Foundation, South African Astronomical Observatory, IAU, COSPAR, United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs and UNESCO. I also acknowledge the contributions by many colleagues who have participated in the capacity-building activities funded by these organisations, as well as the insights I have gained from working with them. This research has made use of NASA’s Astrophysics Data System. References 1. 2. 3. 4.

Eichhorn, G., Accomazzi, A., Grant, C.S., Kurtz, M.J. & Murray, S.S. 2003, African Skies 8, 7. Eichhorn, G. 2004, Astron. & Geophys. 45:3, 7. Feast, M.W. 2002, in Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy – Vol. 3, Ed. A. Heck, Astrophysics and Space Science Library 280, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht (ISBN 1-4020-0812-0), p. 153. Flanagan, C.S., Frecura, F.A.M. & Woerman, B. (Eds.) 2002, Proceedings of the

62

PETER MARTINEZ “Pulsar Studies in Africa”, Workshop held at the Hartebeesthoek Radio Astronomy Observatory, 34 Dec 2001, African Skies 7. Heck, A. 2000, in Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy – Vol. 1, Ed. A. Heck, Astrophysics and Space Science Library 256, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht (ISBN 1-7923-6671-9), p. 7. Hinton, J.A. 2004, New Astron.Rev. 48, 3313 . Isobe, S. 2003, in Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy – Vol. 4, Ed. A. Heck, Astrophysics and Space Science Library 310 Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht (ISBN 1-4020-1526-7), p. 296. Kurtz, M.J., Eichhorn, G., Accomazzi, A., Grant, C., Demleitner, M. & Murray, S.S. 2005, J. American Soc. Inform. Sc. Technol. 56, 364 . Martinez, P., Kilkenny, D.M., Cox, G. et al. 2002, Mon. Not. Astron. Soc. Southern Africa 61, 102. Martinez, P. 2004, in Developing Basic Space Science World-Wide, Eds. W. Wamsteker, R. Albrecht & H.J. Haubold, Kluwer Academic Publishers, Dordrecht, p. 183. Martinez, P. 2005, IAU Inform. Bull. 96, p. 20. NEPAD New Partnership for Africa’s Development5 . Stobie, R.S., Meiring, K. & Buckley, D.A.H. 2000, in Proc. SPIE, 4003, Ed. Ph. Dierickx , p. 355. Whitelock, P. 2004, in Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy – Vol. 5, Ed. A. Heck, Astrophysics and Space Science Library 310, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht (ISBN 1-4020-2570-X), p. 39. Willmore, A.P. 2005, Adv. Sp. Res., in press.

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15.

3

See also http://www.mpi-hd.mpg.de/hfm/HESS/ Also available at http://cfa-www.harvard.edu/∼kurtz/jasist1-abstract.html 5 http://www.nepad.org/ 4

ASTRONOMY IN NEW ZEALAND

JOHN B. HEARNSHAW

Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Canterbury Christchurch, New Zealand [email protected]

Abstract. Although New Zealand is a young country, astronomy played a significant role in its early exploration and discovery during the three voyages of Cook from 1769. In the later 19th century several expeditions came to New Zealand to observe the transits of Venus of 1874 and 1882 and New Zealand’s rich history of prominent amateur astronomers dates from this time. The Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand (founded in 1920) has catered for the amateur community. Professional astronomy however had a slow start in New Zealand. The Carter Observatory was founded in 1941. But it was not until astronomy was taken up by New Zealand’s universities, notably by the University of Canterbury from 1963, that a firm basis for research in astronomy and astrophysics was established. Mt John University Observatory with its four optical telescopes (largest 1.8 m) is operated by the University of Canterbury and is the main base for observational astronomy in the country. However four other New Zealand universities also have an interest in astronomical research at the present time. There is also considerable involvement in large international projects such as MOA, SALT, AMOR, IceCube and possibly SKA.

1. New Zealand’s Astronomical Heritage Few nations can claim that astronomy played a pivotal role in their founding and history. But New Zealand can be proud that astronomy was one of the principal motivations which led to the exploration of this land, and its eventual settlement by Europeans. For when Captain James Cook first came to New Zealand in 1769, it was the observation of a transit of Venus that was one of the reasons for his being sent by the Royal Society of London to the south Pacific. 63 A. Heck (ed.), Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy 6, 63–86. © 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.

64

JOHN B. HEARNSHAW

Very probably, though less well chronicled, astronomy also played an important role for the Polynesian settlement of New Zealand some hundreds of years before Cook. For astro-navigation may have been an important aspect of allowing the Maori to make long sea voyages across the Pacific that ended in their settlement of Aotearoa (the Maori name for New Zealand), around one thousand years ago. 2. Cook’s Voyages and the Transit of Venus In 1769 the Royal Society organized an expedition to the South Seas for the purpose of making observations of the transit of Venus across the Sun, a rare event which had occurred in 1761 and was to occur again in 1769. Observations of the timing of this event at different locations on Earth were known in principle to give the absolute dimensions of the solar system, including the absolute value of the Astronomical Unit. Cook and his astronomical assistant Charles Green on the Endeavour duly observed the transit from Tahiti on June 3, 1769. Analysis of the data was not however very successful in the aim of calibrating the Astronomical Unit. Cook then sailed on to New Zealand, and here the major task of mapping the New Zealand coastline ensued. With Green he made important observations from Mercury Bay on the Coromandel peninsula, where they observed a transit of Mercury. Charles Green can be regarded as the first professional astronomer to work in New Zealand. Sadly he became ill on the return voyage to Cape Town and died in January 1771 before his arrival back in England. Later, on the second (1773-74) and third (1777) expeditions, extensive astronomical observations for determining latitude and longitude using precise Kendall chronometers were made by Cook and his astronomers from Dusky Sound (SW of South Island) and from Ship Cove in Queen Charlotte Sound (northern tip of South Island). William Wales (2nd voyage), William Bayly (2nd and 3rd voyages) and James King (3rd voyage) were the accompanying astronomers. More information on this early nautical astronomical history of New Zealand can be found in Wayne Orchiston’s monograph: Nautical Astronomy in New Zealand (Orchiston 1998). There is an article on Cook’s voyages that discusses the transit of Venus observations in some detail by George Eiby (1970). 3. Maori Astronomy The Maori from early times have developed some astronomical knowledge which is closely entwined with Maori mythology. Certainly the Maori recognized several constellations or stellar patterns in the sky, the brighter


65

planets as well as the Sun and the Moon. The Pleiades, Matariki, played a key role in determining the beginning of the Maori new year when this star cluster is seen to rise just before dawn. The extent to which the Maori used the stars for navigation on their long voyages is uncertain, but may have been of some importance. What is certain is that the Maori have developed a rich mythology based on Rangi (sky father), Papa (the Earth mother) and their progeny of Te Ra (the Sun), Te Marama (the Moon) and Nga Whetu (the stars), and that they understood the relationship of celestial phenomena to the seasons on the land and the growing of crops. The standard early reference on Maori astronomy is Elsdon Best’s monograph The Astronomical Knowledge of the Maori (Best 1922). Also one can refer to a paper by Kingsley-Smith (1967) on Maori star lore, as well as The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Maori Myth and Legend by Margaret Orbell (1995) and Wayne Orchiston’s Nautical Astronomy in New Zealand (1998). 4. The Transits of Venus of 1874 and 1882 The link between New Zealand and transits of Venus became once again an important part of New Zealand astronomical history for the next pair of transits after Cook. These were in December 1874 and December 1882, and in both cases observable from New Zealand. An American expedition to Queenstown in 1874 is well documented, and was one of seven expeditions sent into the Pacific from the US Naval Observatory in Washington. A total of 237 photographs were obtained of the transit from Queenstown. Another expedition from the USNO went to the Chatham Islands. Once again, the calibration of the scale of the solar system was the prime motivation. A paper by Dick, Love and Orchiston discusses the Queenstown expedition (Dick et al. 1998). See also Orchiston et al. (2000). A British expedition to Burnham near Christchurch had cloud for the transit. Further expeditions were mounted for the 1882 transit, the British again going to Burnham and the Americans to Auckland. Several amateur astronomers in New Zealand also observed this event. Orchiston (1998) gives details. The reader should also refer to a paper on early New Zealand astronomy by McIntosh (1970). 5. Notable Early Amateur Astronomers New Zealand has an illustrious history of distinguished amateurs who have made excellent observations at their home observatories. John Grigg (18381920) was one such early amateur. He was born in Kent, migrated to New Zealand in 1863, established a music shop in Thames and built himself an observatory there in 1884 and became an avid comet-hunter. He was the discoverer or co-discoverer of three comets that bear his name, in 1902,

66

JOHN B. HEARNSHAW

1903 and 1907, and he was one of the first to undertake astro-photography in New Zealand (Orchiston 2001). Others followed, taking advantage of the clear unpolluted southern skies and the spirit of do-it-yourself innovation that prevailed in the early colony. Thus Henry Skey (1836-1914) in Otago (Campbell 2001), Thomas King (1858-1916) in Wellington (Seymour 1995), Arthur Atkinson (1833-1902) in Nelson, James Townsend (1815-1894) in Christchurch and Arthur Beverley (1822-1907) in Dunedin were all notable amateurs who equipped their private observatories with small telescopes, and many of these were inspired by the 1882 transit of Venus to take up and further pursue astronomy. The reader is referred to Orchiston’s (1998) book Nautical Astronomy in New Zealand for further reference material. New Zealand even had an accomplished optician and telescope maker in Joseph Ward (1862-1927), who helped to establish the Ward Observatory in Wanganui, and whose telescopes included a 52cm Newtonian reflector (built 1924), which for many years was the largest telescope in New Zealand (Calder 1978, Orchiston 2002). 6. The First Professional Astronomers In 1863 the first ‘official’ observatory was established by the Wellington provincial government. Archdeacon Arthur Stock (1823-1901) was put in charge and, equipped with clocks and a transit telescope, he was able to provide a time service and he operated a time ball from the custom house on Queen’s wharf. By 1868 this became the Colonial Time-service Observatory with Sir James Hector, a noted New Zealand geologist, as director and Stock as observer. He was New Zealand’s first resident professional astronomer (see Hayes 1987 and Orchiston 1998). Thomas King succeeded Stock, and C.E. Adams succeeded King in 1911. Adams distinguished himself as a computer of cometary orbits as well as an observer. The Colonial Observatory was resited in Kelburn in 1907 and known then as the Hector Observatory. The Hector Observatory was renamed the Dominion Observatory in 1926. Professional astronomers were not numerous in early New Zealand, but two other individuals of note deserve mention. Alexander William Bickerton (1842-1929) was foundation professor of chemistry and physics at the Canterbury University College from 1874 until he was fired by the college council in 1902, ostensibly for poor management. Bickerton was a brilliant but unorthodox lecturer, whose star pupil was Ernest Rutherford. But he had a bizarre and largely untenable theory (the partial impact theory, as he called it) on stellar collisions as the origin of variable stars, including novae, and for the origin of the solar system. These theories led to his papers being


67

Figure 1. Map of New Zealand, showing the principal places mentioned in this chapter.

68

JOHN B. HEARNSHAW

shunned and discredited by the professional community in England. More on this colourful character is discussed by Gerry Gilmore (1982). There is also a biography by Burdon (1956). A.C. (Charles) Gifford (1861-1948), who taught mathematics at Wellington College, was also a keen astronomer and he had access to one of the best equipped school observatories. His theories of the origin of the lunar craters by meteorite impact were published in 1924 and 1930, and were an early exposition of what is now recognized as the correct interpretation of the lunar landscape. The College acquired a 5-inch Zeiss refractor in 1924, and this was fully restored in 2002 after falling into disrepair. When the Carter Observatory was founded in 1941, Murray Geddes (1909-44) was appointed the first director. However he never formally took up this position, being called away on war service and he did not return to New Zealand. Ivan Thomsen (1910-69) was his successor from 1946 to 1969. He had previously worked under C.E. Adams at the Dominion Observatory. 7. New Zealand Amateur Astronomers in the 20th Century The fine tradition of amateur astronomy in New Zealand continued throughout the 20th century and up until the present time. This review mentions just three of some distinction among the many who have pursued astronomy as a hobby. One was Ronald McIntosh (1904-1977), who became a distinguished meteor observer. In 1935 he published his Index to southern meteor showers (McIntosh 1935). He also monitored meteor rates and analysed the methods of obtaining meteor orbits from the observed path. McIntosh published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society in London, he directed the Meteor Section of the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand (RASNZ), and for a time he also directed the Auckland Planetarium. Frank Bateson (b. 1909) in Tauranga is another distinguished astronomer who founded the Variable Star Section (VSS) of RASNZ in 1927 and has directed it from that time until December 2004. Not only was he a prodigious observer of variable stars, but his VSS of RASNZ collated observations from dozens of other observers in New Zealand and overseas – see Bateson (2001). This great body of material has resulted in the publication of charts, circulars and publications containing visual observations of many stars. Dwarf novae (see for example Bateson 1978), novae and Mira stars were all studied in much detail, and the fact that many variables had data collected in a continuous record going back six or seven decades has provided an invaluable data resource for many professionals. Frank Bateson was also instrumental in establishing Mt John University


69

Observatory in the early 1960s, when he conducted an extensive site-testing campaign on behalf of the University of Pennsylvania to determine the best location (see Bateson 1964). Mt John was chosen as a result, and Bateson became the first astronomer-in-charge in 1965 until his retirement in 1970. For a tribute to Frank Bateson, see Budding (1989) and Jones (1989). Finally Albert Jones (b. 1920), who lives in Nelson, is the world’s most prolific observer of variable stars. Since the early 1940s he has amassed over half a million visual observations, in some years as many as 13 000 annually, and his magnitude estimates are distinguished by exceptional reliability and precision. Albert Jones was a co-discoverer of the famous supernova 1987A in the Large Magellanic Cloud and he discovered comets in 1946 and 2001. A tribute to Albert Jones is given by Austin (1994). 8. Some Significant Early Telescopes in New Zealand New Zealand has been fortunate to acquire some remarkable old telescopes by famous manufacturers in America and Great Britain. Most of them came here as a result of the amateur astronomers in New Zealand. A selection based on aperture and pedigree is mentioned here. Thomas Cooke of York, England, was one of the most famous telescope makers in Britain in the 1860s. Several New Zealand telescopes are of Cooke manufacture. The largest and oldest of the telescopes in working order is the Ward Observatory Cooke refractor of 9.5 inches aperture in Wanganui. The telescope’s optics were made between 1859 and 1860, and the instrument was purchased for the Wanganui City Observatory (later renamed the Ward Observatory) in 1903. Joseph Ward was the first observer with this telescope (Harper et al. 1990, Nankivell 1994). Another Cooke telescope of almost the same size (originally 9 13 inches, later 9 inches from 1896) was built in York in 1866-67 for the well-known English amateur, Edward Crossley (see Andrews & Budding 1992). This telescope came to New Zealand in 1907 for the Meanee Observatory, near Napier, of the Rev. David Kennedy (1864-1936). In the mid-1920s the Wellington City Council purchased it from Kennedy’s estate and by 1942 the telescope was installed in the newly opened Carter Observatory in Kelburn. It received its third objective lens in 2001. The largest refracting telescope in New Zealand came here in 1962. It is the 18-inch refractor by the American optician John Brashear, which was formerly erected at the Flower Observatory of the University of Pennsylvania. This telescope dates from 1897, though the Brashear optics are a few years older. It was to have been installed at Mt John, but funds for the building were never realized. Now there are plans to donate this famous old telescope to a museum.

70

JOHN B. HEARNSHAW

One old reflector of note was made by George With and John Browning in England, probably about 1870, and was acquired by J.H. Pope, an Otago school teacher in about 1871. The subsequent chequered history of this telescope is given by Dodson (1996). Another With-Browning reflector, of aperture 9 14 inches, was owned by the amateur observer Henry Skey (1836-1914) in Dunedin. The telescope passed to Skey’s son in 1914 and eventually was donated to Ashburton High School in 1925. The telescope was refurbished and housed in a new building between 1974 and 1977 (Evans & Lucas 1989). 9. The Royal Astronomical Society of NZ and Other Regional Societies The New Zealand Astronomical Society (NZAS) was founded in 1920, and formed a nation-wide umbrella organization to which the many regional societies have become affiliated. In 1946, the NZAS acquired its royal charter, and accordingly became the Royal Astronomical Society of New Zealand. It is a rare example of an astronomical society that flourishes with both amateur and professional members, and indeed one of the strengths of the New Zealand astronomical scene has been the healthy interaction between these two communities. The society is run by a council and president. It contains a number of sections for different interest groups. Of these the Variable Star Section, founded by Frank Bateson in 1927 and directed by him until 2004, is certainly the most famous. Other sections cover aurorae, comets and minor planets, occultations and photometry; astronomical computing and meteors sections have also existed in the past. The society holds an annual general meeting and conference, publishes the journal Southern Stars and also a monthly newsletter. More information on RASNZ can be found from the society’s web site1 . Astronomical societies are to be found in all the main centres in New Zealand, with over 600 members for the strong Auckland Astronomical Society. As many as 24 regional societies are currently active in New Zealand. Many of these societies now run their own observatories (for example the Joyce Memorial Observatory of the Canterbury Astronomical Society near Christchurch). 10. Carter and Auckland Observatories The Carter Observatory in Wellington came into being in 1941 as a result of a generous benefaction by the Wellington businessman, politician and farmer, Charles Rooking Carter, on his death in 1896. The original bequest 1

http://www.rasnz.org.nz/


71

of £2000 was not sufficient to found an observatory, but after many delays, the Carter Observatory came into being in December 1941. Murray Geddes, a graduate of Victoria University College, Wellington, and a school teacher, became the first director. However war service prevented him from taking up the position. He was a keen observer of meteors, sunspots, variable stars and aurorae. The Carter Observatory2 houses the 9-inch Cooke refractor, and in 1968 it acquired the 41cm Ruth Crisp reflector. In 1977 Carter Observatory was given the title “National Observatory of New Zealand”. A planetarium was built there in 1992 and the role of the observatory as a regional resource for astronomy education and public outreach has thereby been strengthened. The Auckland Observatory on One Tree Hill opened in 1967 and houses a 50cm Zeiss Cassegrain reflector funded from a private donation. It has been used for photometry of variable stars. The telescope was fully restored in 2003. The Observatory is part of the Auckland Stardome3 which features a Zeiss Planetarium, completed in 1997. 11. Astronomy in New Zealand Universities Although at the present time astronomy as a subject for teaching and research is very much concentrated at the University of Canterbury, several of New Zealand’s other universities have also had or do have an interest in teaching and researching into astronomy. At present Canterbury’s Department of Physics and Astronomy has five academic staff who specialize in optical astronomy, mainly with interests in stars. In addition one staff member has an interest in the solar system, in particular meteoroid dust particles in the solar system (observations of their orbits are made at the meteor radar facility at Birdlings Flat near Christchurch) and two staff members are interested in cosmology or astro-particle physics. One of these is a theoretician specializing in general relativity and gravitation, the other works on problems of neutrino astrophysics, and in particular the opportunity of detecting neutrinos from outer space by the interaction with the ice shelf in Antarctica (the so-called international IceCube project). Canterbury also has academic staff with interests in different aspects of astronomy and space science in other departments. Thus the Department of Electronic and Computer engineering has an interest in astronomical imaging through a turbulent terrestrial atmosphere and the techniques of adaptive optics, the Department of Chemistry has an interest in interstellar chemistry and planetary atmospheres, and the Department of Geological Sciences has an interest in planetary geology and vulcanology. This wide 2 3

http://www.carterobs.ac.nz/ http://www.stardome.org.nz/

72

JOHN B. HEARNSHAW

range of expertise makes Canterbury the clear leader in astronomy amongst the eight universities in New Zealand. Four other universities currently have significant programmes in teaching and research, though each has only one or two academic staff in astronomy. Thus Auckland University collaborates in the MOA project (see below), an international programme with Japanese scientists for which the observations are made at Mt John. Victoria University of Wellington also is part of this project. At the Auckland University of Technology, two staff members have an interest in radio astronomy at the newly established Centre for Radiophysics and Space Research. At Massey University’s Albany campus, one staff member in mathematics has an interest in stellar dynamics while another is analysing CCD data for the MOA microlensing project. Otago and Waikato universities have also employed astronomers in the past, but these astronomical programmes have now lapsed. Having said that, all New Zealand universities teach physics and most of the physics programmes offer some astronomy, mainly at an introductory level. Only at Canterbury can courses be done at any level from years one to three (for a BSc degree) or at BSc Honours level (year 4). Canterbury also offers a master’s degree in astronomy. Canterbury, Auckland and Victoria universities have all had recent PhD students in astronomy. Indeed Canterbury typically has 8 to 10 graduate students (MSc or PhD) enrolled at any one time. Information about the teaching and research in astronomy at Canterbury can be obtained from the web4 . 12. Mt John University Observatory Mt John University Observatory was founded in 1965, as a joint project between the universities of Pennsylvania and Canterbury. The observatory is located at Lake Tekapo, in the centre of New Zealand’s South Island, at a dark-sky site where there is a maximum chance of clear skies. Although the involvement of Pennsylvania was active for the first ten years at Mt John, this is no longer the case and since about 1975 the observatory has been effectively run by the University of Canterbury. The first major instrument to be installed there were three astrographs used for sky photography, of apertures 100, 125 and 250mm, and all mounted on a single equatorial mount under a sliding roof. The astrographs came from the University of Pennsylvania and they were used in the late 1960s to produce a photographic atlas of the southern sky, known as the Canterbury Sky Atlas (Doughty et al. 1972). This was in fact a southern extension of a similar northern hemisphere photographic survey made from Lick Observatory in California. 4

http://www.phys.canterbury.ac.nz/


73

Figure 2. Aerial view of the summit of Mt John, October 2004. The 1.8m MOA telescope is in the centre foreground, the 0.6m Boller & Chivens telescope is to its left and the 0.6m Optical Craftsmen telescope is the dome on the right. The 1m telescope is further to the right, out of the picture. Lake Tekapo is in the background, some 300m below the summit. (Photo courtesy of Tim Rayward, Air Safaris, Lake Tekapo)

In 1970 Pennsylvania provided a 60cm aperture Cassegrain reflecting telescope for Mt John. This telescope is known as the Optical Craftsmen telescope, and it was equipped with a photoelectric photometer for measuring the brightness of stars. Mainly variable stars are the topic of interest, and pulsating, eruptive, rotating (active chromosphere) and eclipsing variables have all been studied at Mt John over several decades. In 1975 Canterbury provided a second telescope made by the firm of Boller and Chivens in the United States. This telescope is also of 60cm aperture, and it was the first to be used for stellar spectroscopy at Mt John, from 1976. It has also been used for photoelectric photometry and for direct photography of the sky. But since 1995 this telescope was completely refitted and given a new drive and f/6.25 wide-field Cassegrain optical system to make it suitable for the MOA project, which involves CCD imaging of crowded star fields for the Japan-New Zealand microlensing project. The MOA project is discussed further below. The 1m McLellan telescope was designed and built at Canterbury and installed at Mt John in 1986. Although it can be used for photometry and imaging, the great majority of all time allocated on it is for high resolution spectroscopy of stars. For this purpose the Hercules spectrograph has been used since 2001. Before that time, another échelle spectrograph (now retired) was in use at either Cassegrain focus or from an optical fibre feed.

74

JOHN B. HEARNSHAW

Studies are made of precise stellar radial velocities, binary and variable stars and the chemical abundances of the elements are studied in a variety of stars. A fourth reflecting telescope at Mt John was installed in late 2004. It was constructed by the Nishimura Co. in Kyoto, Japan for the MOA microlensing project. It has a 1.8m aperture and alt-az mounting and a large 10-chip 80-megapixel CCD camera is mounted at the f/3 prime focus. This telescope will be used exclusively for CCD photometry in the MOA project. Further information about Mt John can be obtained from the web5,6 . 13. The 1m McLellan Telescope The design for the McLellan 1m telescope was undertaken at Canterbury in the early 1980s, with the assistance of Norman Rumsey and Garry Nankivell working at the Physics and Engineering Laboratory (now Industrial Research Ltd) of the former Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR). The optical design is a Dall-Kirkham Cassegrain, with an ellipsoidal figure for the primary and spherical secondary. That system has rarely been used in the past because of the significant off-axis aberrations. But Rumsey designed a three-lens corrector system giving good images over a one-degree field. The Dall-Kirkham optics were easier to make than the more traditional Ritchey-Chrétien arrangement. The optical figuring of the mirrors was undertaken by Garry Nankivell at Canterbury in 1981. Low expansion Zerodur ceramic was used. The mechanical design and construction was by technical staff at the University of Canterbury. It is a traditional asymmetric single-pier equatorial mounting. The electronics and control system were also a local Canterbury product, including the drive system, encoding and computer control. The whole telescope was completed in late 1985 and installed at Mt John in early 1986 in a building formerly used by the US Air Force for tracking satellites, but which was completely refitted and modified to accommodate the new telescope. Canterbury built an 8m dome for the new installation. The telescope was opened in July 1986 and named after Professor Alistair McLellan, the former head of the Physics Department at Canterbury. It has been in almost uninterrupted operation on clear nights ever since 1986, with stellar spectroscopy being the main area of research for which it has been used. The photometry of stars with a CCD camera and the tracking of asteroids are other noteworthy projects undertaken with this telescope. 5 6

http://www.phys.canterbury.ac.nz/ http://www.mjuo.canterbury.ac.nz/mjuo


75

Figure 3. The 1m McLellan telescope under test in a workshop at the University of Canterbury, December 1985, just prior to installation at Mt John. The Florida spectrograph is at the Cassegrain focus. The entire telescope was designed and built at the University of Canterbury. (Photo courtesy of the University of Canterbury)

76

JOHN B. HEARNSHAW

14. The Hercules Spectrograph In 1975-77 Canterbury built a high dispersion échelle spectrograph for Mt John based on a design provided by the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass. The new échelle spectrograph, which was one of the first of its type in the southern hemisphere, was mounted on the Boller and Chivens 60cm telescope in 1977 and used for recording the spectra of bright stars. At first these were recorded photographically, but later with electronic image intensifier tubes, then with an electronic diode array digital detector and finally with a charge-couple device (CCD). This instrument was retired in 2001. In 1998 work had begun on a much larger and more powerful spectrograph, the High Efficiency and Resolution Canterbury University Large Echelle Spectrograph (HERCULES) which was designed and built at Canterbury. This instrument is linked to the telescope by a 20m optical fibre and the whole spectrograph is mounted inside a vacuum tank in a specially insulated room to maintain exceptional stability. The spectrograph is described by Hearnshaw et al. (2002). The HERCULES spectrograph was installed in 2001 and had its first light in April of that year. Today it is the main instrument used on the McLellan telescope. It is used to analyse the spectra of variable stars and, for example, to measure precise velocities of stars using the Doppler effect. More information on the Hercules spectrograph can be found on the web7 . 15. The MOA Project If by chance a massive object (a star or perhaps a black hole) passes precisely between us and a distant star, then a phenomenon known as gravitational microlensing can take place. This is caused by the bending of light rays by the gravitational field of the intermediate massive object (the lens), with the result that the light from the distant star can be amplified in brightness, typically for a few weeks or a month while the alignment of the source star, lens and Earth is nearly perfect. Although this was predicted many decades ago by Einstein (1936), the first microlensing event was only discovered in the early 1990s. The main reason is that the alignments are so rare, that millions of stars have to be searched to find one undergoing microlensing. In 1995 a project began at Mt John, mainly supported by Auckland, Canterbury and Victoria universities in New Zealand and Nagoya University in Japan. About 30 scientists from these four universities and several 7

http://ww.phys.canterbury.ac.nz/research/astronomy/hercules/


77

Figure 4. Opening of the 1.8m alt-az MOA telescope at Mt John University Observatory, 1 December 2004. About 140 guests, mostly from Japan and New Zealand, attended the opening ceremony. The telescope was manufactured by the Nishimura Co., Kyoto, Japan, and will be dedicated to the MOA microlensing project. (Photo courtesy of the University of Canterbury)

78

JOHN B. HEARNSHAW

other institutions are involved in the project. It is known as the MOA project, meaning Microlensing Observations in Astrophysics. All the observations for MOA have so far been made with the 60cm Boller and Chivens telescope at Mt John, using observers from both New Zealand and Japan. The objects viewed are the Magellanic Clouds and the Galactic Bulge. In these regions of the sky millions of stars can be observed in one exposure, giving a reasonable chance of finding microlensing events should they occur. Fifty or so events are discovered annually by the MOA team. The principal aims of MOA are to discover and make observations of microlensing events in order to learn more about dark matter such as black holes in the Galaxy and possibly to discover planets in orbit around other stars (if the lens is a star, which normally will not be bright enough to be visible, happens to have a planet in orbit around it, then this may influence the way the source star’s light is amplified in a characteristic way that can allow new planets to be discovered). In fact MOA has discovered one planet using this technique in 2003, and possibly another in 1998. The 2003 event is the only probable planet discovery by microlensing (Bond et al. 2004). In 2003 the Japanese principal scientist in the MOA project obtained a grant of about 430 million yen for a new larger telescope for the MOA project. This new 1.8m telescope was constructed at the Nishimura Company in Japan and installed at Mt John in October 2004. It has a Russian made Astrosital mirror and the mounting is alt-az. A large CCD camera with 80 million pixels and covering a field of view of about 1.5 degrees is mounted at the f/3 prime focus. The optics for the new MOA telescope were designed in New Zealand at Industrial Research Limited, who also made the four corrector lenses, which are mounted just in front of the CCD detector. More information on the MOA project can be found on the web8 . 16. SALT SALT is the Southern African Large Telescope. This is a large 10m class telescope of novel design currently nearing completion at the South African Astronomical Observatory at Sutherland some 400 km NE of Cape Town. The telescope is now (February 2005) nearing completion. In May 2000 the University of Canterbury became a partner in the SALT consortium, being one of about a dozen partner countries or institutions in South Africa, the United States, Poland, Germany and Britain. Canterbury bought a roughly 5% share in SALT in return for funding for the telescope and for the design and construction of one of three major instruments. In Canterbury’s case, the instrument bid for was the high resolution échelle spectrograph, similar 8

http://www.phys.auckland.ac.nz/moa/index.html


79

Figure 5. View of the MOA 1.8m telescope building at Mt John, looking north over Lake Tekapo (right) and Lake Alexandrina (left) to some of the foothills of the Southern Alps in the South Island of New Zealand. (Photo courtesy of Fraser Gunn, Lake Tekapo)

80

JOHN B. HEARNSHAW

to but larger than HERCULES now in operation at Mt John. At the time of writing the start of construction of the new instrument for SALT is expected later in 2005. SALT will also have a lower resolution spectrograph (for observing fainter objects) known as PFIS (prime focus imaging camera) being built by the University of Wisconsin, which is one of the SALT partners, and a direct imaging CCD camera known as SALTICAM, being built at the South African Astronomical Observatory in Cape Town. Once SALT is operational Canterbury astronomers will have the opportunity to obtain data on one of the world’s largest telescopes and to do research into fainter and more distant objects beyond our local region of the universe. More information on the SALT project and on the Canterbury spectrograph being designed for SALT is available on the web9,10 . 17. AMOR The Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Canterbury has an active group working on the dynamics of interplanetary dust grains. The group operates a radar facility (Advanced Meteor Orbit Radar, AMOR) that determines the trajectories of interplanetary grains near the Earth (Baggaley et al. 1994, Baggaley 2001). The generation of plasma during the ablation in the atmosphere of such grains (size >∼ 30µm) provides a target, the geometry and speed of which are sensed by radar. The AMOR group operates the facility as a collaborative programme supported by the European Space Agency via the operation centre (ESOC) in Darmstadt. The radar work has provided complementary aspects to ESA’s spacecraft detections of interplanetary dust by in-situ detections via the missions Galileo, Ulysses, Helios and Cassini, and the particle collections and Earthreturn by the current Stardust mission. Whereas present space missions provide very limited dynamical information, the radar tracking can provide heliocentric orbits and sources of the material that makes up the solar system dust cloud. One aspect of the programme is to provide models for the spacecraft impact hazard. In addition to the near-Sun environment, the radar project has made the discovery of dust grains entering the solar system from outside (Taylor et al. 1996) and has been able to map the inflow of this material (Baggaley & Galligan 2001). Such grains are large enough to penetrate into the heliosphere and are undetectable by conventional long sight-line stellar methods. The sources of dust within the solar neighbourhood can also be mapped. 9 10

http://www.salt.ac.za/ http://www.phys.canterbury.ac.nz/research/astronomy/salt


81

The facility makes use of the time-of-flight between sites separated by approx 10 km to gain the velocity components; sensing the ablating grains’ speed via the radar signal phase characteristics ensures quality velocity calibration enabling heliocentric orbit uncertainties of < 1◦ and 5% in size elements. The programme is under continuous operation, providing surveillance of the Earth’s dust environment with > 106 orbits in the data base. Current targeted sources are cometary streams, asteroidal collisional debris material, Earth-orbit space debris and interstellar grains. 18. Neutrino Astrophysics: RICE and IceCube The particle astrophysics group at the University of Canterbury is currently working on two neutrino experiments located at the South Pole. Icecube is a cubic-kilometre detector at present (2005) under construction. It is an international collaboration including researchers from institutes in the United States, Europe, Japan and New Zealand. It will consist of eighty strings each holding sixty photomultiplier tubes deployed between 1.4 km and 2.4 km below the ice surface. The primary signal will be long range muons from muon-neutrinos interacting with nucleons in the ice. The science goals include the search for transient neutrino sources like gamma-ray bursts or supernovae, as well as the study of candidates of steady or variable sources of neutrinos such as active galactic nuclei and supernova remnants. There will be an effort to search for sources of cosmic rays. The detector can also be used to search for neutrinos from super heavy particles related to topological defects, as well as to search for magnetic monopoles and any new physical phenomena at very high energies. The first Icecube string was recently deployed in the 2004-05 southern summer. Full deployment should take about five to six years. For information on Icecube, see its web site11 . The group at Canterbury is also working on the Radio Ice Cerenkov Experiment (RICE). The lead group is at the University of Kansas in the United States. RICE is also a neutrino detector and its primary signal is a short burst of radio waves emitted after an electron-neutrino interacts with a nucleon in the ice and the energy is dissipated through an electromagnetic cascade. The science goals are similar to Icecube, but RICE probes a higher energy regime and uses a different flavour of neutrino. The current RICE detector consists of about twenty radio antennas at various depths between 100 m and 300 m below the ice surface and 100 m wide. The detector is sensitive to electron neutrinos of energy above 1 PeV, and is sensitive to interactions in the ice up to 1 km away from the antenna array. Analysis of the data thus far has revealed no unambiguous ultra-high energy neutrino candidates. This has allowed RICE to place upper limits on various 11

http://icecube.wisc.edu/

82

JOHN B. HEARNSHAW

models of cosmic ray neutrino sources (Kravchenko et al. 2003). Plans for an upgrade and expansion of the experiment are currently being made. 19. Radioastronomy in New Zealand and the SKA A new development in 2004 was the establishment of the Centre for Radiophysics and Space Research at the Auckland University of Technology. This new centre is led by Professor Sergei Gulyaev and the aim is to develop a VLBI capability in New Zealand in collaboration with radio-astronomers in Australia. The first goal is to acquire a telecommunications dish from a telecommunications company in New Zealand and convert it into a radio telescope and link it to the Australia Telescope VLBI array for the initial trials. This project should proceed during 2005 and beyond. A longer term goal is for New Zealand to become part of Australia’s Square Kilometre Array consortium (ASKAC). If the proposed Square Kilometre Array is sited in Australia, then one or more nodes in the array of antennas could be placed in New Zealand. 20. The future of New Zealand Astronomy Astronomy world-wide has undergone a fundamental revolution over the last hundred years. In most of the 19th century and before, astronomy was first of all, an aid to maritime navigation and a means of accurate mapping of localities on the Earth. To this end, time-keeping and astrometry were two of the principal tasks undertaken by astronomers. Starting in the 1860s, changes in the way astronomers in Europe practised their science began to take place. For the first time they began to ask fundamental questions about the physical nature and properties of the stars. At first physics was hardly advanced enough to provide many answers. But physics also underwent a revolution, and by the early twentieth century astronomers began applying physics to interpret their observations. This revolution was only really successful from the 1920s, when a real understanding of stellar spectra using physics became possible, based on atomic theory and the concept of ionization. The development of New Zealand astronomy mirrors these developments on a world scene. Certainly the first New Zealand astronomers practised time-keeping, navigation, the determination of geographical coordinates and astrometry. Later observers studied meteors and comets and theoreticians speculated on the nature of variable stars (Bickerton) and the origin of lunar craters (Gifford). It is fair to say that New Zealand was slow, however, to embrace astrophysics. The Carter Observatory, established in 1941, undertook some solar physics, and a photoelectric photometer to measure


83

star brightness was used there soon after the Second World War (Thomsen 1950). But lack of resources prevented a fully-fledged research programme from being developed. Further study of meteors by radar was made at Canterbury in the 1950s and 60s. But only when Mt John Observatory was established with American help in the 1960s can we say that a firm base in observational astrophysics was established in New Zealand. By this time observatories specializing in astrophysics had already celebrated over 50 years or more of existence in many European countries and in North America, and the Commonwealth Solar Observatory on Mt Stromlo in Canberra, Australia, which was founded in 1924, has also provided a been developed into a strong centre for astrophysics. In this sense, New Zealand has had a late start in astrophysical research. With Mt John now a successful research observatory, with astronomy and astrophysics being taught and researched in five of New Zealand’s eight universities, and with important contributions to astronomy from a thriving amateur community, and New Zealand’s participation in international astronomy projects such as MOA, IceCube, AMOR and SALT, and the new development of radioastronomy at AUT (with possible participation in the SKA project), the future of astronomy in New Zealand now looks reasonably bright, at least in some areas of astronomy. In spite of a late start, there is no doubt that New Zealand is now making a significant mark on the world scene in selected areas of astronomy and astrophysics. Perhaps only about a dozen to twenty professional astronomers actually work in New Zealand (the number depends on how one defines an astronomer), mainly in our universities. On the other hand about four dozen New Zealanders are professional astronomers overseas, and many have been or are astronomers of international distinction (e.g. Beatrice Tinsley, Gerry Gilmore, Dick Manchester, Andrew Cameron, David Buckley and others). If we add these people to the tally of astronomers in New Zealand, including a dozen or more amateur astronomers who make valuable research contributions, there is no doubt that in proportion to the total population (4.0 million), New Zealanders are making a significant contribution to the world of discovery in astrophysics and space science. Acknowledgements The author of this review thanks Alan Gilmore and Pam Kilmartin (both at Mt John University Observatory) for helpful discussions and for drawing my attention to many of the references cited in the text. Dr Surujhdeo Seunarine at Canterbury kindly supplied information on the IceCube and RICE projects and Prof. Jack Baggaley (also at Canterbury) kindly supplied information on the meteor orbit radar AMOR.

84

JOHN B. HEARNSHAW

References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10.

11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24.

25. 26.

Andrews, F.P. & Budding, E. 1992, Carter Observatory’s 9-inch Refractor: The Crossley Connection, Southern Stars 34, 358-366. Austin, R.R.D. 1994, Albert Jones – The Quiet Achiever , Southern Stars 36, 36-42. Baggaley, W.J. 2001, The AMOR Radar: An Efficient Tool for Meteoroid Research, Adv. Space Res. 28(9), 1277-1282. Baggaley, W.J., Bennett, R.G.T., Steel, D.I. & Taylor, A.D. 1994, The Advanced Meteor Orbit Radar: AMOR, Quart. J. Roy. Astron. Soc. 35, 293-320. Baggaley W.J. & Galligan G.P. 2001, Mapping the Interstellar Dust Flow into the Solar System, European Space Agency Special Report SP-495, 703. Bateson, F.M. 1964, Final Report on the Site Selection Survey of New Zealand, Publ. Univ. Pennsylvania, Astron. Series X, iv + 139 pp. Bateson, F.M. 1978, The Southern Dwarf Nova, Z Cha, Monthly Not. R. Astron. Soc. 184, 567. Bateson, F.M. 2001, The Variable Star Section, RASNZ, Southern Stars 40, 7-11. Best, E. 1922, The Astronomical Knowledge of the Maori, First published 1922; new edition 1955 published as Dominion Museum Monograph 3. Bond, I.A., Udalski, A., Jaroszynski, M., Rattenbury, N.J., Paczynski, B., Soszynski, I., Wyrzykowski, L., Szymanski, M.K., Kubiak, M., Szewczyk, O., Zebrun, K., Pietrzynski, G., Abe, F., Bennett, D.P., Eguchi, S., Furuta, Y., Hearnshaw, J.B., Kamiya, K., Kilmartin, P.M., Kurata, Y., Masuda, K., Matsubara, Y., Muraki, Y., Noda, S., Okajima, K., Sako, T., Sekiguchi, T., Sullivan, D.J., Sumi, T., Tristram, P.J., Yanagisawa, T. & Yock, P.C.M. 2004, OGLE 2003-BLG-235/MOA 2003-BLG53: A Planetary Microlensing Event, Astrophys. J. 606, L155-L158. Budding, E. 1989, Eightieth birthday of Dr Frank M. Bateson, Southern Stars 33, 169. Burdon, R.M. 1956, Scholar Errant, Pegasus Press, Christchurch, NZ. Calder, D. 1978, Joseph Ward: Pioneer Astronomer and Telescope Maker, Southern Stars 27, 104-108. Campbell, R.N. 2001, Henry Skey 1836-1914, Southern Stars 40/2, 11-12. Dick, S.J., Love, T. & Orchiston, W. 1998, Queenstown and the 1874 Transit of Venus, Carter Observatory Information sheet 11. Dodson, A. 1996, Thye With-Browning Telescope at Pauatahanui, Southern Stars 37, 45-51. Doughty, N.A., Shane, C.D. & Wood, F.B. 1972, The Canterbury Sky Atlas, Publ. Dept. of Physics, Univ. Canterbury, NZ. Eiby, G. 1970, Captain James Cook and the Universe, Southern Stars 23, 140-152. Einstein, A. 1936, Lens-like Action of a Star by the Deviation of Light in the Gravitational Field, Science 84, 506-507. Evans, R.W. & Lucas, K.J. 1989, The Skey-Ashburton College Telescope, Southern Stars 33, 178-187. Gilmore, G. 1982, Alexander William Bickerton: New Zealand’s Colourful Astronomer, Southern Stars 29, 87-108. Harper, C.T., Warren, O. & Austin, R. 1990, J.T. Ward and the NZO Double Stars, Southern Stars 33, 281-294. Hayes, M. 1987, In Spite of his Time, a Biography of R.C. Hayes, NZ Geophysical Society. Hearnshaw, J.B., Barnes, S.I., Kershaw, G.M., Frost, N., Graham, G., Ritchie, R.A. ´ & Nankivell, G.R. 2002, The Hercules Echelle Spectrograph at Mt John, Experimental Astron. 13, 59-76. Jones, A.F. 1989, F.M. Bateson: A Tribute from an Observer, Southern Stars 33, 170-171. Kingsley-Smith, C. 1967, Astronomers in Piupius: Maori Star Lore, Southern Stars 22, 5-10.

ASTRONOMY IN NEW ZEALAND 27.

28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33. 34. 35. 36. 37. 38.

85

Kravchenko, I., Frichter, G.M., Miller, T., Piccirillo, L., Seckel, D., Spiczak, G.M., Adams, J., Seunarine, S., Allen, C., Bean, A., Besson, D., Box, D.J., Buniy, R., Drees, J., McKay, D., Meyers, J., Perry, L., Ralston, J., Razzaque, S. & Schmitz, D.W. 2003, Limits on the Ultra-high Energy Electron Neutrino Flux from the RICE Experiment, Astropart. Phys. 20, 195-213. McIntosh, R.A. 1935, An Index to Southern Meteor Showers, Monthly Not. R. Astron. Soc. 95, 709-718. McIntosh, R.A. 1970, Early New Zealand Astronomy, Southern Stars 23, 101-108. Nankivell, G.R. 1994, The 9.5-inch Cooke Objective of the Wanganui Observatory, Southern Stars 36, 1-9. Orbell, M. 1995, The Illustrated Encyclopedia of Maori Myth and Legend, Canterbury University Press, Christchurch. Orchiston, W. 1998, Nautical Astronomy in New Zealand, Publ. Carter Observatory, Wellington. Orchiston, W. 2001, The Thames Observatories of John Grigg, Southern Stars 40 3, 14-22. Orchiston, W. 2002, Joseph Ward: Pioneer New Zealand Telescope Maker, Southern Stars 41, 13-21. Orchiston, W., Love, T. & Dick, S.J. 2000, Refining the Astronomical Unit: Queenstown and the 1874 Transit of Venus, J. Astron. History and Heritage 3, 23-44. Seymour, J.B. 1995, The History of the Thomas King Observatory, Wellington, Southern Stars 36, 102-114. Taylor, A.D., Baggaley, W.J. & Steel, D.I. 1996, Discovery of Interstellar Dust Entering the Earth’s Atmosphere, Nature 380, 323-325. Thomsen, I. 1950, Proceedings of Observatories: Report from Carter Observatory, Wellington, NZ, Monthly Not. R. Astron. Soc. 110, 163.

Appendix Astronomers Currently Working in New Zealand Universities The appendix lists astronomers currently active in teaching and research in New Zealand universities. Only those with tenured staff appointments are listed. University of Auckland (Faculty of Science, Tamaki campus) − Assoc. Prof. Phil Yock (MOA project, cosmic rays) Auckland University of Technology (Centre for Radiophysics and Space Research) − Prof. Sergei Gulyaev (radioastronomy, interstellar medium, theoretical astrophysics) − Dr Slava Kitaev (radioastronomy, computer science, electronics) University of Canterbury (Dept. of Physics and Astronomy) − Dr Jenni Adams (astro-particle physics, IceCube project, neutrinos, cosmology) − Dr Michael Albrow (microlensing, variable stars, globular clusters) − Prof. Jack Baggaley (meteors, meteor orbit radar) − Assoc. Prof. Peter Cottrell (stellar spectra, variable stars, SALT project)

86

JOHN B. HEARNSHAW − Prof. John Hearnshaw (stellar spectra, astronomical spectrographs, history of astrophysics, MOA project, variable stars) − Dr Karen Pollard (variable stars, microlensing) − Dr William Tobin (CCD photometry, eclipsing binaries, astronomical history, MOA project) − Dr David Wiltshire (general relativity, fundamental particle physics, black holes)

University of Canterbury (Mt John University Observatory) − Alan Gilmore (comets, asteroids, variable star photometry, gamma-ray bursters) − Pam Kilmartin (MOA project, comets, asteroids, variable stars) University of Canterbury (Dept. of Chemistry) − Prof. Murray McEwan (planetary atmospheres, interstellar chemistry) University of Canterbury (Dept. of Electronic and Computer Engineering) − Assoc. Prof. Phil Bones (astronomical imaging, image processing) University of Canterbury (Dept. of Geological Sciences) − Prof. Jim Cole (planetary geology and vulcanology) Massey University (Albany campus, School of Mathematics) − Dr Ian Bond (MOA project, CCD photometry, extrasolar planets) − Dr Winston Sweatman (theory of stellar dynamics, MOA project) Victoria University of Wellington (School of Chemical and Physical Sciences) − Assoc. Prof. Denis Sullivan (MOA project, pulsating white dwarf stars)

THE CURRENT STATE OF AUSTRIAN ASTRONOMY

SABINE SCHINDLER

Institut f¨ ur Astrophysik Universit¨ at Innsbruck Technikerstraße 25 A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria [email protected]

Abstract. We report on the current situation of astronomy and astrophysics in Austria: the institutes, the funding situation, international connections. The lack of access to large telescopes is especially pointed out.

1. Overview Astronomy has a long tradition in Austria. Currently, astronomical research is pursued mainly at three university institutes (Fig. 1): Graz1 (with the Solar Observatory Kanzelh¨ ohe2 ), Innsbruck3 and Vienna4 (with the Leopold Figl Astrophysical Observatory5 ). In contrast to most other countries, there is no astrophysics present at other research institutes, like the Max Planck Gesellschaft (MPG) in Germany6 , the Istituto Nazionale di Astrofica (INAF) in Italy7 , or the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in France. Note that the Space Research Institute of the Aus¨ trian Academy of Sciences [Osterreichische Akademie der Wissenschaften 8 ¨ (OAW)] in Graz focuses mostly on the Solar System using space probes (i.e. in-situ measurements) and does therefore not perform astronomical research as defined by the European Space Agency (ESA). 1

http://www.kfunigraz.ac.at/igamwww/ http://www.solobskh.ac.at/ 3 http://astro.uibk.ac.at/ 4 http://www.astro.univie.ac.at/ 5 http://www.astro.univie.ac.at/∼foa/ 6 See e.g. the chapter by J. Tr¨ umper (2004) in OSA 5. (Ed.) 7 See e.g. the chapter by V. Castellani (2003) in OSA 4. (Ed.) 8 http://www.iwf.oeaw.ac.at/ 2


88

SABINE SCHINDLER

The commissioning of the Figl Observatory in 1970, hosting a 1.5m telescope, represents the last major publically funded facility in Austria for astronomical research. By joining ESA in 1987 an important step towards the integration of Austrian astronomy into the European scientific community was made. In contrast to almost all other European countries, Austria still does not have any direct access to ground-based telescopes at world-class astronomical sites. This is currently the biggest problem of Austrian astronomy. In order to solve this problem, Austrian astronomers have been trying for a long time to get access to such facilities by joining ESO. In April 2003 and again in February 2005 the “Austrian Council for Research and Technology Development” (which is involved in all major decisions of the Austrian government on research) has issued recommendations to the Austrian Federal Government to start negotiations with the European Southern Observatory (ESO) on an Austrian membership. So far negotiations have not started yet. In line with the current joining-ESO initiative, the Austrian Society for ¨ Astronomy and Astrophysics [Osterreichische Gesellschaft f¨ ur Astronomie 9 ¨ )] was founded in Autumn 2002. This society und Astrophysik (OGAA represents all astronomical researchers and all related research institutes. Over 150 professional astronomers and astrophysicists as well as amateur astronomy associations guarantee a broad level of support for the commu¨ nity. The OGAA is an affiliated organisation of the European Astronomical Society and a partner of the German Astronomical Society [Astronomis¨ represents the interests che Gesellschaft (AG10 )]. In this way the OGAA of Austrian astronomy within Europe. All the details of preparations for ¨ Austria’s joining of ESO is handled by the OGAA’s ESO Working Group. 2. Institutes, Personnel and Education The number of permanent positions at the Institutes in Vienna, Innsbruck and Graz amounts to a total of 29, of which 4 are full professors (2 in Vienna, one each in Innsbruck and Graz). Around 5 scientific positions are currently used to support library and computing facilities as well as teaching administration duties. In addition to these permanent positions, 16 post-doctoral and 37 postgraduate position are funded each year through a number of grants from the Austrian Science Fund (FWF11 ), the Austrian Academy of Sciences ¨ (OAW), the Ministry for Education, Science and Culture (BMBWK12 ), 9

http://www.oegaa.at/ http://www.ari.uni-heidelberg.de/AG/ 11 http://www.fwf.ac.at/ 12 http://www.bmbwk.gv.at/ 10

AUSTRIAN ASTRONOMY

Figure 1.

89

Locations of the three astronomical/astrophysical institutes in Austria.

the Ministry for Traffic, Infrastructure and Technology (BMVIT13 ), the Tyrolean Science Foundation and other international sources. This adds up to more than 80 scientifically active professional astronomers and astrophysicists plus a good number of of MSc students. The age distribution of astrophysicists with permanent positions is shown in Fig. 2. Three Austrian universities offer astronomy as part of their curricula. At the University of Vienna, a Master’s degree in astronomy can be obtained, while in Innsbruck and Graz, astrophysics is offered as part of a larger physics curriculum with a possible specialisation in astrophysics. All of them also offer a PhD degree. In the near future a Bachelor’s degree will be offered as well. Astronomy is popular among the students, e.g., in Autumn 2004 at the University of Vienna a total of 402 students chose astronomy as their major with additional students attending selected classes. The increase in the number of students over several years is demonstrated in Fig. 3, where the number of students successfully passing the course “Introduction to Astronomy” as well as the number of participants of the first lab course is shown. The number of graduations in Vienna (Astronomy) and in Innsbruck (Physics) fluctuate around 14/year and 20/year, respectively, 13

http://www.bmvit.gv.at/

90

SABINE SCHINDLER

and are slowly increasing. Currently a reorganisation of the university structures is in progress at all Austrian universities. At the University of Vienna, astronomy is part of the specially promoted field of “Matter and Cosmos”. At the University of Innsbruck astrophysics is leading two proposals for such promoted fields, one on “Astro- and Particle Physics” and one on “High-Performance Computing”, the latter involving several departments. Some astrophysical research is also performed at other Austrian institutes. Intense collaborations exist with the University of Vienna (mathematics, theoretical physics), the Technical University of Vienna (nuclear and theoretical physics), and the University of Innsbruck (computer science, mathematics). 3. Funding and International Collaborations On the average, more than 10 grants are obtained each year through the Austrian Science Foundation (FWF), the Austrian Academy of Sciences ¨ ¨ (OAW) and the Austrian National Bank (ONB). These grants are mostly used to fund non-permanent researchers, while other personnel for research and instrument development is funded directly by the two above-mentioned ministries BMBWK and BMVIT. The quality of astronomical research ¨ is reflected in the amount of grants received – from FWF, ONB, OAW, BMBWK, BMVIT, the Austrian Space Agency (ASA), the European Union (EU) mobility programmes, the Swiss National Fonds (SNF), the German Science Foundation (DFG) and others. This amounts to about 1.1 Million Euros per year and thus is roughly six times the available amount of direct funding. Austrian scientists are participating in the development of new satellites – they are co-investigators in the ESA cornerstone mission Herschel, CNES projects such as EVRIS und COROT, and the Canadian project MOST – as well as in new instruments (DENIS, TIMMI2). The international recognition of the Solar Physics research in Graz is demonstrated by the election of its leader as the President of the world-wide Organization of Solar Observatories. In addition to the above-mentioned activities, the Austrian astronomical institutes collaborate with a large number of institutes all over the world. For example, the institute in Graz has collaborations with more than 20 high-ranking solar-physics departments world-wide and the institute in Innsbruck has published articles together with colleagues from 58 institutions in the interval 2000-2004. The Kanzelh¨ ohe Solar Observatory (Fig. 4) is part of a world-wide network of monitoring stations of the Sun in high-resolution Hydrogen Alpha mode led by the US Big Bear Solar Ob-

AUSTRIAN ASTRONOMY

91

Figure 2. Number of Austrian astrophysicists (graduated) versus age working in Austria ¨ or abroad. (Source: OGAA’s ESO Working Group)

Figure 3. Number of students successfully passing the course “Introduction to Astronomy”(full line) and the second-year lab course (dashed line) versus time.

servatory. Furthermore, the Institute of Astronomy in Vienna coordinates a large world-wide network of telescopes. The development of the publication rate is shown in Table 1. The numbers of publications per Austrian astronomer is similar to that in Germany, and slightly below the European mean. This is especially surprising, given the difficult conditions, e.g. the limited access to telescopes, no exisiting research institutes, and limited funding.

92

SABINE SCHINDLER

TABLE 1. Publications by astrophysicists working in Austria. Type/Year

1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

Average

Personnel

65

75

80

75

70

58

71

Refereed publications

46

83

76

77

59

61

67

Other publications

35

61

93

98

95

76

76

Ref. pub. per person

0.7

1.1

0.9

1.0

0.8

1.05

0.9

TABLE 2. Use of large telescopes by astronomers working in Austria. 1996

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

Size (m)

2-4

>4

2-4

>4

2-4

>4

2-4

>4

2-4

>4

2-4

>4

Nights

30

0

22

0

83

0

30

0

82

26

32

12

ESO nights

3

-

6

-

6

-

13

0

41

26

1

12

ESO (%)

0.8

0.8

1.8

3.2

3.4

2.3

4. Telescope Use Observational projects require successful applications for telescope time on both ground-based and space telescopes. For those projects needing small telescopes (less than 2m), this can be achieved using the available national facilities or through collaborations with foreign observatories. For projects requiring space telescopes or large ground-based telescopes, Austrian astronomers have to apply for time at international facilities to which Austria has not contributed any funding. This usually implies that such access is much harder. Consequently, Austrian astronomers typically get around 40 nights a year on medium-sized telescopes, in addition to observing time obtained at foreign Solar Observatories, but very little time on the stateof-the-art large telescopes (see Table 2 for full details). An exception are the ESA space telescopes, as Austria is a full member of ESA and therefore has equal access to these facilities. 5. Scientific Topics Austrian astronomy concentrates on two main topics, on stars and their planetary systems and on extragalactic astronomy and cosmology. Both

AUSTRIAN ASTRONOMY

The Kanzelh¨ ohe Solar Observatory. (Courtesy KSO)

93

Figure 4.

94

SABINE SCHINDLER

topics are treated observationally and by numerical simulations. The first topic includes research on astro-seismology, structure and dynamics of stellar atmospheres, solar physics, chemical composition of stars and extrasolar planets, late stellar evolution and feedback/interaction to/with the interstellar medium, star forming regions and stellar births. The second topic is represented by chemo-dynamical evolution of galaxies, galaxies and their interaction with their environment, clusters of galaxies, dark matter and cosmology. Various satellites are used for observations in different wavelengths: MOST, ISO, HERSCHEL, XMM-Newton, CHANDRA and in the future also ASTRO-E2. HERSCHEL and MOST have been developed partly by Austrian astronomers. 6. Collaborations and Synergies Austrian astronomers participate in a large number of international collaborations. The number of these collaborations increased in particular in the last 3 years and continues to increase. Also intra-Austrian collaborations exits, e.g. several groups were involved in a large long-term project on “Stellar Astrophysics” funded by the Austrian Science Foundation from 1995 to 2000. A new long-term project on “Galaxies and Their Environment” is planned. These projects aim particularly at linking theory and observation on the one hand and at linking researchers from different institutes on the other hand. A regular exchange of seminar speakers and lectures between the Austrian institutes furthers the exchange of ideas and the planning of joint research projects. An annual meeting of the Austrian Society for Astron¨ omy and Astrophysics (OGAA) consolidates these. The Society also aims at more international contacts through collaborations with the German and European Astronomical Societies. Astrophysics in Austria seeks out and welcomes many additional connections to other fields. Currently the most active in this respect is the field of astro-particle physics, a combination of high-energy physics, astrophysics, and cosmology. The main questions of interest involve dark matter and cosmic rays. Another upcoming field is astrobiology, which deals with the possibilty of extra-terrestrial life. It is a combination of biosciences, chemistry, physics, medicine, and of course astrophysics. This field has enormous potential and will undergo rapid expansion over the next 10 years. The first steps that have been made are the study of cosmic dust and an interdisciplinary lecture series. Present-day astronomy requires the processing of enormous quantities of data, high-performance computing power, and fast networks. This implies

AUSTRIAN ASTRONOMY

95

close links with computer science. Over the next 10 years, an involvement in GRID is essential. All the above are needed for data archiving as well as for large parallelised numerical calculations, which are spread over many different computers. The astronomical community is therefore participating in the AUSTRIAN GRID and other interdisciplinary high-performance computing initiatives. ¨ The OGAA is an important platform for interdisciplinary contacts in this respect. 7. Public Outreach and Education Because of the lively public interest in astronomy, all institutes regularly conduct public outreach and media related activities. Researchers frequently give talks at meetings of amateur associations and at schools. In addition they actively participate in science public outreach events (“Science Week”, “University Meets Public”, exhibitions, etc.) and in work with schools (projects for pupils and advanced training of teachers). 8. Summary and Conclusion Austrian astronomy and astrophysics is internationally well-connected and highly active in research, education and public outreach activities. This is demonstrated by the number of successful applications for internationally competitive funding and observing time, and international collaboration in the development of astronomical instrumentation. Astronomy is very important to attract students to the natural sciences and technical subjects. However, the complete absence of direct access to large groundbased telescopes puts Austrian astronomy at risk of becoming isolated and marginalised. Therefore joining ESO is of utmost importance for Austrian astronomy. Acknowledgements I am grateful to Michel Breger, Arnold Hanslmeier, Herbert Hartl, Josef Hron, Eelco van Kampen, Ronald Weinberger, and Werner Zeilinger who have been helped considerably in preparing this article.

CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES IN OPERATING A HIGH-ALTITUDE SITE

ROBERT E. STENCEL

Chamberlin and Mt Evans Observatories Department of Physics and Astronomy University of Denver 2112 East Wesley Avenue Denver CO 80208-0202, USA [email protected]

Abstract. Observing stations at elevations in excess of 4000m are rare. This report discusses the efforts to sustain and preserve one such site in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, in North America. The long-term value of such sites can be measured in terms of their optical and infrared characteristics, as well as their ability to inspire astronomers and students to study the universe. The sustainability of this site is yet to be determined.

1. Introduction Historically, the placement of telescopes atop hills and mountains improved the access to as much sky as possible. Since the days of George Hale, advantages of higher sites for reasons beyond panoramic views have emerged, including seeing and transparency, especially at near- and non-optical wavelengths. Colorado, in North America, is blessed with numerous peaks in excess of 4000m elevation. Hale himself site-tested Pikes Peak in 1894, but unfortunately sampled the site during the height of a Spring blizzard, and never returned to these longitudes (Hale 1894). 1.1. RATIONALE FOR THIS HIGH-ALTITUDE SITE

Mt Evans, Colorado is located 35 miles [53km] west of Denver, at altitude 14 148ft [4305m] above sea level, at Latitude 39◦ 35 13 N, Longitude 97 A. Heck (ed.), Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy 6, 97–109. © 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.

98

ROBERT E. STENCEL

105◦ 38 25 W. The measured local acceleration of gravity is reduced to g = 9.79006 m/sec2 at this relatively extreme altitude. Between 1972 and 1999, it was consistently listed as highest observatory in the world in the USNO Astronomical Almanac, eclipsed only recently by newer facilities in India (Hanle, 4467m) and proposed facilities in the Atacama desert in Chile at elevations in excess of 5000m. The combination of good seeing due to treeless tundra and unobstructed airflows, low water vapor columns on average in terms of infrared transparency, and favorable cloud statistics all result in excellent site advantages for astronomy from the Mt Evans summit. Road access to the site promotes relative ease in training and instrumentation, and the site should be preserved for future scientific use. To appreciate the opportunities afforded by the Mt Evans site, a review of local astronomy history is appropriate. In 1880, Herbert A. Howe arrived from the Cincinnati Observatory as a new professor of mathematics and astronomy at the University of Denver. By the end of that decade, a patron enabled Howe to design and build Chamberlin Observatory featuring an 0.5m aperture Clark-Saegmueller refractor. Site selection seemed to involve finding a level parcel of land near the young university, then located well outside Denver city. The south Denver parcel featured dark skies, good airflow and access convenience. Howe soon reported completion of the observatory, telescope and first light (Howe 1894). When did high-altitude sites begin to be used? Early high-altitude installations include Mt Hamilton (Lick Observatory) in 1888, and earlier, Pic du Midi in 1873. During the 19th century, science was expanding with global expeditions of discovery regarding the atmosphere and the spectrum of sunlight. This set the stage for an early proponent of high-altitude observatories, the Astronomer Royal of Scotland, Charles Piazzi Smythe, who in 1856 climbed Mt Teide on Tenerife and detected infrared radiation coming from the Moon. Br¨ uck (2002) states that, despite his discovery, Smythe was not able to persuade the British government to finance a mountain station in that era. 1.2. SITE HISTORY AND DEVELOPMENT

According to Colorado historical sources, in 1888, the Cascade and Pikes Peak Toll Road Company completed a 16 mile [26km] road up the north side of Pikes Peak. This became a major attraction, drawing tourists away from Denver area. Not to be outdone, Denver’s Mayor Speer proposed that a road be constructed to the top of Mt Evans. In 1917, he was able to procure state funds to build the road that was completed in 1927. Soon thereafter, Arthur Compton of Chicago University arrived to study cosmic

OPERATING A HIGH-ALTITUDE SITE

Figure 1. G. Kronk)

99

Panoramic view of Mt Evans Observatory taken in 2003. (photograph

rays at altitude (Rossi 1990). Bruno Rossi himself demonstrated the time dilation effects on µ mesons from atop Mt Evans in 1939. In the post-World War II era, an international collaboration of researchers sponsored by the University of Denver flocked to Mt Evans and its Echo Lake facilities. This activity flourished into the 1960s when accelerators elsewhere began to eclipse the direct observation of cosmic rays from high-mountain sites. During this time, the “Space Race” and increasing interest in air pollution monitoring inspired the Denver Research Institute to propose a telescope for the Mt Evans site, in collaboration with local universities. The first telescope was an 0.6m Ritchey-Chrétien telescope by Ealing-Beck completed in 1972. Funding for operations limited its use to studies of comets Kohoutek (1972) and Halley (1986). The site was nearly abandoned when a bequest to the University of Denver appeared in 1990 that included funds for a new mountaintop telescope and observatory. This author was hired in 1992 to fulfill this bequest by William Herschel Womble. Denver University teamed with Eric Meyer, who provided a unique dual 0.7m telescope for the site, and the Meyer-Womble Observatory atop Mt Evans was completed in Summer 1996, with first light Summer 1997, following proposal and environmental impact studies with US Forest Service who manage the district. Usage is largely limited to Summer season when access is easiest. Consistent Summer observing programs, guest observers and classes have been held each year since 1997, and observing proposals welcomed via the web site1 .

1

http://www.du.edu/∼rstencel/MtEvans

100

ROBERT E. STENCEL

2. Opportunities What is the research potential of a high, dry site like Mt Evans? First, there is the human need to see as far as possible, the “vision thing”. Imagine a great observatory. It is most likely to be located on a high-mountain site, for reasons including excellent seeing, low water vapor for infrared and sub-millimeter wavelength work, and favorable cloud statistics. Easy access encourages student training and instrument testing. Because few sites of this quality are available, we support the IAU efforts to preserve and protect astronomical sites. However, though Denver city can be seen from the summit, the observatory itself is remote and challenging. To sum it up, “everything up here is an experiment”. The University of Denver has continuously operated a modest weather station atop Mt Evans since January 1991. This station has been outfitted with sensors to measure temperature, barometric pressure, relative humidity, wind speed and direction, and battery voltage maintained by solar panels. The station’s data logger has been programmed to poll the sensors every minute and report hourly averages, as well as minimum/maximum values and standard deviations for that hour. The bulk of the data presented in this section has been acquired from this station. Partial gaps in the data sets are due to occasional sensor malfunctions during these periods. A pyranometer was added to the sensor package in June 1996. Although battery voltages, despite a voltage limiter in the circuit, can indicate the fraction of sunny hours, the pyranometer provided more direct sunshine statistics. The daily average, minimum, and maximum temperatures as a function of the day of the year were examined for each of the years between January 1991 and the present. The temperature profile is remarkably constant from year to year with diurnal variations being on the order of 10◦ . Also of special note is the infrequency of days below 0◦ F [-18◦ C], although minima of -40◦ F [-40◦ C] and -18◦ F [-28◦ C] were noted. These results are significant because the hourly temperature gradient is small, which minimizes thermal distortions, and operationally, one may not require engineering for supercold, arctic conditions (i.e. significantly below -40◦ F [-40◦ C]). Wind data has been examined and reveals average and maximum hourly wind speeds for the four seasonal periods December-February, March-May, June-August, and September-November, where median and mean wind speeds average 25 to 30 knots [46 to 56km/h], with sigma about 10 knots [19km/h]. Maximum winds measured to date have not exceeded 107 knots [198km/h], although it would be prudent to plan for higher speeds. The hourly average wind direction versus its corresponding speed clearly demonstrate that when the wind speeds are greater that 15 knots [28km/h], the winds are tightly constrained to a direction out of the west-south-west

OPERATING A HIGH-ALTITUDE SITE

101

(azimuth = 255◦ ). Below this value, the direction is more random but still generally out of this west south-west direction. This result is important for several reasons. First, the average wind speed is comfortably below dome closure requirements of 40 knots [74km/h]. Second, the wind direction is the most favorable for inducing laminar flow over the observatory parcel, i.e. from the steep western side of the ridge, cresting above the observatory and descending to the east. This latter behavior accounts for the seeing stability noted toward the west side of the sky (see image motion monitoring, below). Relative humidity, barometric pressure, and temperature data can be used to calculate the partial pressure of water vapor at the site (see Allen 1976, p. 120). For the latitude of Mt Evans, the partial pressure of water in millibars, nearly equates to the vertical column of water in precipitable millimeters. A water column less than 2mm ( 6cm), but causes severe difficulties for observations at short wavelengths (especially at 1.3cm). In order to avoid

RADIO ASTRONOMY PROGRAMS

131

wasting observing time during bad weather conditions, two observing schedules are made for Effelsberg whenever possible. The first – high priority plan – contains weather-sensitive observations (at short wavelengths), with the possibility to reject the offered time in case the weather forecast is not favourable. In this case the second schedule becomes active, which usually contains observation at long wavelengths (≥ 11cm), e.g. HI observations or pulsar timing. These programs are usually carried out by local astronomers or – remotely – by the telescope operators. 5. Conclusion The method of evaluation and selection of observing programs for the 100m antenna described here has now been in use (with minor changes only) for more than 30 years now, and has always guaranteed the efficient use of the Effelsberg telescope. One of the changes was a more international composition of the programme committee since 2004 with respect to the rules for EU funded projects. Within this framework, we also plan to incorporate a unified form for electronical proposal submission, which will be developed for the European radio observatories. Other issues currently under discussion are e.g. the handling of projects, which can be carried out only under very good weather conditions (low water vapour content) and the evaluation of proposals with extremely high demand of observing time (“key projects”). The technical improvement of the telescope (new subreflector with active surface, and automatic, fast receiver changes) – planned for 2006 – will give the opportunity of a more flexible allocation of observing time as well as a very efficient use the telescope. Acknowledgements We thank Richard Porcas and Wolfgang Reich for critically reading the manuscript.

THE DEVELOPMENT OF HST SCIENCE METRICS

J.P. MADRID, F.D. MACCHETTO∗ AND CL. LEITHERER

Space Telescope Science Institute 3700 San Martin Drive Baltimore MD 21218, USA ∗ Affiliated with the Space Telescope Division European Space Agency ESTEC NL-2200 Noordwijk AG, The Netherlands [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] AND G. MEYLAN

Laboratoire d’Astrophysique ´ Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne Observatoire CH-1290 Chavannes-des-Bois, Switzerland [email protected]

Abstract. In this chapter, we outline how a metrics program for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has been developed at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI). We highlight results regarding the productivity and impact of the HST. We also present a comparison with other major observatories and discuss the importance of the data archives. The process and results presented here can be reproduced by other facilities wishing to monitor and improve their scientific output.

1. Introduction One of the most important goals for Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) on the second decade of operations of the Hubble Space Telescope (HST – Fig. 1) is to optimize its science program. The development of sci133 A. Heck (ed.), Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy 6, 133–143. © 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.

134

J.P. MADRID ET AL.

ence metrics facilitates the evaluation of the scientific output of HST and allows the improvement of this output through educated decisions. The parameters we use to evaluate the influence of HST on astronomical research are: (i) the number of refereed papers based on HST observations that we link to specific observing programs, and (ii) the number of citations generated by these papers. This method has been used by Crabtree & Bryson (2001) to evaluate the effectiveness of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope and by Leibundgut et al. (2003) to measure the European Southern Observatory’s scientific success. The first step was to gather the necessary data on published papers, citations, and observing programs. We then proceeded to assess the productivity and impact of HST through statistics presented in Sect. 3 & 4. We also evaluated the ranking of HST among the observatories that provide data to papers of High-Impact in Sect. 5 & 6. In Sect. 7, we describe the growing importance of the archives. The full scientific and public impact of a facility may be evaluated through additional metrics, such as the number of press releases (Christian 2004), the “most important” discoveries, etc. In this chapter we present science metrics that are solid, objective and reproducible. 2. The databases The starting point for the development of these metrics was to establish a comprehensive database of papers using data obtained with the HST. Creating such a database can be onerous and the process still needs substantial human intervention. The advent of digital libraries greatly facilitates the compilation of a bibliography. The NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is the predominant search engine used by astronomers to access the technical literature. Its is widely known that astronomers use the ADS on a daily basis (Kurtz et al. 2005). We thus naturally turn to the ADS to complete an existing bibliography maintained by the STScI Library. We include in our database all refereed papers that publish at least an image or a spectrum taken with HST or new values derived directly from HST data. A new system of dataset identifiers is in the process of being implemented (Eichhorn et al. 2004). Identifiers associated with specific astronomical datasets will be included on papers using data from major observatories. This will improve drastically the hyperlinks between the literature and online data. It can also make compiling bibliographies for observatories much easier.

HST METRICS

135

Figure 1. The Hubble Space Telescope (HST) orbiting the Earth, the curvature of which is well visible in this picture. (Courtesy NASA)

136

J.P. MADRID ET AL.

A database of observing programs is needed as well. This database should contain a log of each observation taken by the telescope for all observing programs. For HST this database can be accessed through the server of the Multimission Archive at Space Telescope (MAST). The database is populated with information collected during the process of time allocation and with the planning and scheduling observation log. Every observing program has links to all refereed papers using its data. Thus we can find out which programs are the most effective. 3. Productivity A now-standard measure of the productivity of an observatory is the number of published papers using its data. Most refereed papers using HST data are published in the five core journals of astronomy viz. the Astrophysical Journal (ApJ), the Astronomical Journal (AJ), Astronomy and Astrophysics (A&A), the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society (MNRAS), and the Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (PASP). In addition we count all papers in the other refereed journals, such as Nature and Science. Here we report the number of papers published through the end of 2004. In Fig. 2, we plot the number of refereed papers using HST data as a function of the year of publication. HST has been called the “Energizer Bunny of Astronomy” (Guinnessy 2003) for good reasons. Since its launch in 1990, HST has provided data used in more than 4700 papers. In the year 2004 alone, HST data was used in more than 600 refereed papers. We are not aware of any other working telescope more productive than HST. The ever increasing productivity of HST can be explained by the regular servicing missions to upgrade its science instruments and thus maintaining state-of-the-art technology in a telescope launched fifteen years ago. Careful operations, selection and scheduling of the observations performed by HST maximize its scientific output. To date the Hubble Deep Field, an icon of modern astronomy, is the most productive HST program with 132 refereed papers. Other very productive programs include the Medium Deep Survey, the Quasar Absorption Line Survey, the Determination of the Extragalactic Distance Scale and the Snapshot Survey of 3CR Radio Galaxies. The whole set of HST papers is available to the astronomical community through the main search form on the ADS. 4. Impact In order to assess the impact of the science done using HST, we obtained the citations to papers using HST data. Our citation counts are based on

HST METRICS

Number of refereed papers based on HST data per year.

137

Figure 2.

138

J.P. MADRID ET AL.

the numbers provided by the ADS. There are different providers for citation statistics, each provider has its own strengths and its weaknesses. See, for instance, Sandqvist (2004) and Heck (2003) for mistakes made by citation statistics providers. The NASA-ADS provides a reliable, easy access, and free of charge source of citation counts for Astronomy. We decided to use the ADS for its convenience and for the kind willingness of the ADS staff to provide technical assistance and cooperation during the development of the HST science metrics. In Fig. 3, we present the mean number of citations per paper using HST data as a function of years since publication. We also plot as a comparison the mean number of citations for refereed papers in astronomy. Fig. 3 shows how HST papers have an average citation rate much higher that the average paper published in the five major journals of astronomy. A couple of years after publication most papers using HST data are cited. Roughly only 2% of HST papers remain uncited two years after publication compared to 25% for all refereed papers in astronomy. HST has unmatched observing capabilities in the UV, visible and nearinfrared. The high citation rate of HST reflects the excellent quality of its observations. HST has contributed data to many of the most cited papers in astronomy during the last decade. Chief examples are the papers about the Hubble Deep Field, the determination of the Hubble constant, and the determination of cosmological parameters through observations of distant supernovae. 5. High-Impact Papers Knowing which telescopes provide the data for the most cited papers is a metrics of interest for many. The Institute for Scientific Information (ISI – see e.g. Abt 2003) coined the term High-Impact Papers (HIP) for the 200 most cited papers published in a given year. In Meylan et al. (2004) we gave a complete description of the method we use to establish which telescopes have the highest impact on the astronomical literature. Briefly, we obtain the 200 most cited papers in a given year through the ADS. We then access the full text and decide whether it is an observational or a theoretical paper. For all observational papers we determine which telescope provides the data. In the case of several telescopes contributing data for one paper we assign a share of the total number of citations to each facility involved. In Meylan et al. (2004), we published the HIP for the years 1998 to 2001. We present here new results for 2002 and 2003 in Table 1 and Table 2

HST METRICS

139

Figure 3. Mean number of citations of refereed HST papers by publication year. The papers considered were published in the five major journals (ApJ, AJ, A&A, MNRAS & PASP).

140

J.P. MADRID ET AL.

respectively. For the years we studied, HST has always been among the telescopes of high impact, occupying the first place in 1998, 1999 and 2000. Along with HST, Keck, Chandra, and ESO are permanent members of the select high-impact club. Spitzer should be joining soon. Some facilities have important but transient impact like it was the case for Boomerang and Scuba. It will be interesting to know the impact that SDSS and WMAP have in future years.

TABLE 1. ADS High-Impact Papers 2002. Telescope CHANDRA SDSS Apache Point Observatory HST ESO 2dF Anglo Australian Observatory Sudbury Neutrino Observatory DASI XMM-Newton Keck ROSAT

Fraction of the Total 11.7 10.9 8.7 7.2 7.0 7.0 5.4 4.9 4.7 3.5

TABLE 2. ADS High-Impact Papers 2003. Telescope WMAP SDSS Apache Point Observatory Keck ESO HST CHANDRA Kamiokande 2MASS XMM-Newton CBI

Fraction of the Total 24.9 11.2 7.4 7.2 6.1 5.0 4.3 3.3 2.4 2.0

HST METRICS

141

6. Other observatories All major observatories like Keck, Chandra, ESO, Spitzer, and XMMNewton, have developed very similar metrics programs to evaluate the scientific output of their telescopes. A detailed comparison between the HST and the ESO Very Large Telescope (VLT) science metrics can be found in Grothkopf et al. (2005). This paper shows how 120 refereed papers use data of both HST and VLT. HST images taken with WFPC2 are often combined with spectroscopy taken with ISAAC. The combination of HST and Keck or HST and VLT is now common (Trimble et al. 2005). Data collected with different facilities can now easily be combined to complement each other. A prime example is the Virtual Observatory (VO) that provides a framework to facilitate the cross-matching of datasets at all wavelengths to fuel new scientific results. 7. Archives Archives holding data acquired with large telescopes are of increasing importance in astronomy and will certainly expand in the future, the VO is again an excellent example. MAST is in charge of storing and distributing the data for HST. In a recent study the proportion of HST papers that are based on archival data was assessed (Levay 2005). For each paper we compared its authors against the names of the authors of the observing program associated. The result of this exercise is that 35% of HST papers are published by different authors than the ones who made the original proposal. MAST was crucial in providing the data for 35% of the HST bibliography. The availability of HST data through MAST will ensure that papers will certainly keep using HST data even beyond the end of the mission as it is the case for IUE today. 8. Conclusion The productivity and impact of HST continues to grow fifteen years after its launch: today HST is the most productive telescope. HST is building a legacy of data for the astronomical community that will keep yielding scientific results for many years to come. Acknowledgments We thank the ADS team and specially Michael Kurtz and Carolyn SternGrant. We are grateful to the MAST team at the STScI, particularly Karen

142

J.P. MADRID ET AL.

Figure 4.

The Hubble Deep Field. (courtesy NASA)

Levay for the numerous times she has helped storing and handling the data used in this study. The STScI Librarian Sarah Stevens-Rayburn has made important contributions to the HST bibliography. References 1. 2. 3. 4.

Abt, H.A. 2003, The Institute for Scientific Information and the Science Citation Index, in Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy – Vol. 3, Ed. A. Heck, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht, 197-204. Crabtree, D.R. & Bryson, E.P. 2001, The Effectiveness of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope, J. Roy. Astron. Soc. Canada 95, 259-266. Christian, C.A. 2004, The Public Impact of the Hubble Space Telescope: A Case Study, in Organisations and Strategies in Astronomy – Vol. 5, Ed. A. Heck, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht, 203-216. Eichhorn, G. & Astrophys. Datacenter Exec. Committee Collab. 2004, Connecting

HST METRICS

5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13.

143

to On-line Data: A Progress Report, Bull. American Astron. Soc. 36, 1542. Grothkopf, U., Leibundgut, B., Macchetto, D., Madrid, J. & Leitherer, C. 2005, Comparison of Science Metrics Among Observatories, ESO Messenger 119, 45-49. Guinnessy, P. 2003, Astronomers Lobby for New Lease on Hubble’s Life, Physics Today 56, 29-31. Heck, A. 2003, Wrong Impact!, European Astron. Soc. Nsl. 26, 4-5. Kurtz, M.J., Eichhorn, G., Accomazzi, A., Grant, C.S., Demleitner, M. & Murray, S.S. 2005, Worlwide Use and Impact of the NASA Astrophysics Data System Digital Library, J. American Soc. Inform. Sc. Technol. 56, 36-45. Leibundgut, B., Grothkopf, U. & Treumann, A. 2003, Metrics to Measure ESO’s Scientific Success, ESO Messenger 114, 46-49. Levay, K. 2005, private communication. Meylan, G., Madrid, J. & Macchetto, D. 2004, Hubble Space Telescope Science Metrics, Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacific 116, 790-796. Sandqvist, Aa. 2004, The A&A Experience with Impact Factors, in Organisations and Strategies in Astronomy – Vol. 5, Ed. A. Heck, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht, 197-201. Trimble, V., Zaich, P. & Bosler, T. 2005, Productivity and Impact of Optical Telescopes, Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacific 117, 111-118.

THE SCIENCE NEWS METRICS

CAROL A. CHRISTIAN

Space Telescope Science Institute Homewood Campus 3700 San Martin Drive Baltimore MD 21218, USA [email protected] AND GREG DAVIDSON

Northrop Grumman Space and Technology One Space Park Drive Redondo Beach CA 90278, USA [email protected]

Abstract. Scientists, observatories, academic institutions and funding agencies persistently review the usefulness and productivity of investment in scientific research. The Science News Metrics was created over 10 years ago to review NASA’s performance in this arena. The metric has been useful for many years as one facet in measuring the scientific discovery productivity of NASA-funded missions. The metric is computed independently of the agency and has been compiled in a consistent manner. Examination of the metric yields year-by-year insight into NASA science successes in a world wide context. The metric has shown that NASA’s contribution to worldwide top science news stories has been approximately 5% overall with the Hubble Space Telescope dominating the performance.

1. Introduction The Office of Space Science (OSS) of the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), recently absorbed into NASA’s Science Mission Directorate, is responsible for developing a space science program with a primary objective to accomplish fundamental science. Ultimately, like many science organizations, NASA’s success is measured in part by the achievement of scientific insights relative to the cost. NASA OSS consid145 A. Heck (ed.), Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy 6, 145–156. © 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.

146

CAROL A. CHRISTIAN AND GREG DAVIDSON

ers scientific potential and output of missions in strategic planning and is held accountable for the associated costs. Independent measures of scientific accomplishments have been an integral part of this strategy. While fundamental science is the primary objective of the Space Science program, it is also among the most difficult of outcomes to measure. In the early 1990’s, one of us (Davidson) led an effort at NASA to identify science metrics. At the most fundamental level, a good metric is something that you can count which is correlated with what you want. Desirable secondary characteristics include ease of data collection, precision, and low levels of bias. The group at NASA explored both prospective measures (planned capabilities in terms of angular resolution, spectral resolution, sensitivity, and time resolution, all as a function of wavelength coverage) as well as retrospective measures (quantity of data, number of observations, and bibliometric measures such as number of refereed papers or frequently cited refereed papers). Two retrospective metrics were selected from this analysis as being particularly well-suited to address NASA strategic planning needs. Key advantages of these metrics included relative ease of collection, independence of NASA, correlation with other, more complex metrics (particularly the citation bibliometrics) and ability to communicate results in a meaningful way to policy makers and to the public. These metrics are not perfect surrogate measures of all aspects of scientific performance, but they do provide important insights into fundamental scientific performance. The first measure, colloquially referred to as the “Science News Metric” is based on the annual listing of “most important stories” in the journal, Science News. This listing has a 31-year history and is published at the end of each calendar year. The Science News Metric essentially tracks “what’s hot” in science on a year-by-year basis. The second metric formulated for OSS is the “Textbook Metric”. This measure is an attempt to penetrate how the “hot” science topics of a single year get incorporated in the body of knowledge. The purpose is to understand OSS’s capture of “intellectual market share” (what percentage of textbook material is based on OSS contributions) in the long term as well as overall growth of knowledge about astronomy. This metric will not be discussed herein. A similar metric was discussed by Christian (2004) in evaluating the impact of the Hubble Space Telescope mission. 2. A Description of the Science News Metric Science News is published weekly. It summarizes scientific findings in fields as diverse archeology, biomedicine, chemistry, mathematics, psychology, space science, and technology. Science News captures the essence of ref-

SCIENCE NEWS METRICS

147

ereed scientific publications in a digest form. Since 1973, Science News has published an annual list highlighting over 100 (usually 125-170) of the “most important stories” in science. Each year, the Science News Metric is compiled (by Davidson) to track those stories and estimate the OSS contribution to each. The metric represents the scientific or technical accomplishments for each year and from this the performance of Space Science funded by NASA can be compared over to all other “world-class” science in fields as diverse as archeology to biomedicine. 2.1. CALCULATION

The Science News Metric is calculated as follows: 1. All the “most important stories” are screened. Those that are not based on discoveries (data collected and scientific inferences made) or technological accomplishments are eliminated, usually about 15% of the total. 2. One point is awarded for each “most important story”. In most cases, the discovery is due to collaborative efforts, and so credit is apportioned among the groups (foreign, ground-based astronomers, etc.) referenced by Science News as being responsible for the discovery. 3. NASA “points” are compared against points for all other scientific discoveries to establish NASA Space Science as a percentage of world science. The method allows comparison of NASA with other federal agencies (e.g., National Science Foundation). For example, in 2002, one of the top stories involved Dark Matter. In fact, Science News had three separate articles on this particular subject. The contributing NASA missions were the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP), the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), the High Energy Astronomical Observatory (HEAO), and the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS), but with different contributions (WMAP being the most significant followed by HST). The discovery was definitely based on data and research results, and involved more that one agency. WMAP was given 0.38 points, HST given 0.25 points, HEAO given 0.03 points and the SDSS given 0.05 points. The total number of points allocated is less than 1.0 because non-space facilities contributed to this story. 2.2. STRENGTHS AND WEAKNESSES

The strengths of the Science News Metric for the purpose intended are, first, that the data used to generate this metric have been determined independently of NASA. The news stories are selected by a completely independent entity. The research and assessment following the publication of the

148


year-end issue of Science News in December is conducted autonomously. Additionally, this metric provides data on individual missions as a function of time, thus yielding insight to support life-cycle cost trade-offs. One correlation with bibliometrics that was surprising to some in the early 1990’s was that 30%-40% of science return occurred after the completion of prime mission lifetime. A parallel study of bibliometrics on IUE and OAO showed that peak publication of papers was 4-6 years after launch, and that peak publication of frequently cited papers (>5 citations/year) occurred 5-7 years after launch. Note there is some randomness in the metric due to the incidence of discoveries in a given calendar period. As an example, two black hole discoveries may share one point in one year. If the results had been split between years, the stories might have been attributed to more than one point. As an additional caveat, it is recognized that the Science News Metric is based on the journal Science News, and not as rigorous as a refereed scientific journal. One can argue that the number of “most important stories” from a mission as highlighted by a commercial journal is not necessarily correlated with the scientific value of that mission. What researchers value as the most important advances in their discipline may loosely correlate with what Science News reports, but the correspondence is not necessarily one-to-one. Also different science stories may involve varied levels of effort. For example, the importance of the single finding of the origin of the universe based on the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) mission data and analysis took considerable time and effort. In some sense the Science News Metric can capture the importance and level of effort in such situations because, for example, the COBE result was so significant that the story re-emerged repeatedly in subsequent years as a “most important story”. Alternatively, attempts at using refereed publications on a year-to-year basis to evaluate the impact of specific discoveries and research results is time consuming and problematic. Usually refereed publications take considerable time to reach publication and an important subject may take years to accumulate the representative articles that would indicate “importance”. Using a “subject citation index” if it existed as such would also be difficult in that it takes several years for a specific set of results to be assimilated by the scientific community and then referenced. It follows that refereed publications and citations can be useful for retrospectives, but as timely measures of productivity they are risky. The importance of the Science News Metric should be understood. As one facet of the accomplishments that NASA uses to formally report activity under the Government Performance and Results Act (GPRA), this indicator clearly is taken as a serious measure. The metric can have some


149

deliberate influence on the funding for missions and specific lines of scientific inquiry. Certainly missions that appear favorably with high Science News Metrics use the metrics as a leverage point in arguing for continuation or augmentation. 3. Science News Metrics 3.1. TOP MISSIONS

Table 1 exhibits the 2004 Science News Metric results for the top scoring missions. The data are the accumulated points for all NASA missions during the period 1973 to 2004. The points accumulated through 2003 also are shown in the third column entitled “Points 03”. It can be seen from this table, and has been borne out by previous analyzes, that the Hubble Space Telescope has been the single most productive mission NASA has supported. Other missions have had significant stories, surprisingly persistent over a long period of time, for example Voyager. This table cannot capture the whole picture of science productivity however. Stories such as the discovery of evidence for water on Mars and the success of the Mars rovers Opportunity and Spirit in 2004 are undisputed, but the accumulated points for those missions in one year do not project those individual missions into the top 25 consistently generating significant results. 3.2. 2004 TOP STORIES

Another cut at the data includes the top stories listed by Science News that contain results attributable to NASA missions. These results are exhibited in Table 2. This table contains the story description (Column 5) and the fractional points (Column 1) attributable to a specific NASA mission or program (Column 4). The NASA Center (for example Jet Propulsion Laboratory = JPL or Goddard Space Flight Center = GSFC) are designated in the third column. The Sponsor column refers to an agency (such as European Space Agency = ESA or the US Department of Defense = DoD) or a branch of NASA as it existed in 2004. The designation “S” indicates Space Science, “Y” indicates Earth Science, “M/U” indicates the Human Space Flight enterprise and “R” indicates Aerospace and Technology. It can be seen that many stories are split between missions and facilities, demonstrating the multi-instrument, multi-wavelength nature of space science investigations.

150


TABLE 1. Top 25 Most Productive Space Programs (1973-2004). Points show the cumulative number of discoveries between 1973 and 2004 or 2003 Points 04

Points 03

1 2 3 4 5

53.0 15.7 15.2 11.2 9.8

50.2 15.7 15.2 11.2 9.8

6 7 8 9 10 11 11 11 11 15 16 17 17 19 19 21 22 23 24 25

9.5 9.2 7.7 7.5 5.8 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.3 5.2 4.7 4.7 4.6 4.6 4.4 4.2 4.0 3.8 3.7

9.5 9.2 7.7 7.5 5.8 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.5 5.3 5.2 4.7 4.7 4.6 4.6 4.4 4.2 4.0 3.8 3.7

Program Hubble Space Telescope Voyager Viking Galileo Apollo, Skylab, Apollo Telescope Mount, Apollo-Soyuz Space Shuttle (HEDS and Microgravity) Gamma Ray Observatory Mars Global Surveyor Chandra X-ray Observatory Salyut NOAA Satellites Pioneer 10/11 Pioneer-Venus Physics and Astronomy Rockets and Balloons ISTP (SOHO, WIND, Polar) ROSAT Nimbus 4-7 Solar Maximum Mission (SMM) Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS) Mariner 9/10 Venera Magellan Astromaterials High Energy Astrophysics Observatories (HEAO)

3.3. NASA PERFORMANCE

Table 3 compares NASA to a few other agencies represented in the news stories of 2004. The NASA enterprises are broken out, illustrating that Space Science has carried the bulk of the important stories for the agency. It also emphasizes the valuable investment the Office of Space Science has made in public information and outreach based on solid scientific research. Figure 1 exhibits the 31-year history of the NASA’s contribution to the top stories, where the total for NASA is exhibited as well as the individual branches of NASA. The mid-1980’s dip is associated with (a) the relatively weak scientific payoff from large investments in shuttle-based instruments,


151

TABLE 2. 2004 Most Important Stories, sorted by mission. Note: Center refers to the institution responsible for building or operating the spacecraft making the discovery; in most cases the science investigations are done by scientists elsewhere in the other community or at other Centers. No. stories

Sponsor

Center

Program

Discovery

0.8

S

JPL

MER

0.2 1

ESA S

ESA JPL

Mars Express Cassini

0.65 0.05 0.3 1

S S S S

HQ JPL GSFC GSFC

grants SST HST HST

1

S

JPL

Stardust

0.5

S

GSFC

HST

0.9 0.5

S S

JPL GSFC

SST HST

0.5

S

GSFC

HST

0.5

S

JPL

SST

1

Y

JPL

QuikSCAT

0.5 0.5 0.5

R R DoD

LARC DFRC DoD

Hyper-X Hyper-X DMSP

0.5

S

JPL

MER

1

ESA

ESA

ERS

Discovery of evidence of past water on Mars Evidence of methane on Mars New measurements at Saturn and new high-resolution images Discovery of Sedna Discovery of Sedna Discovery of Sedna Hubble Ultra-Deep Field shows some of the earliest galaxies Highest resolution images ever taken of a comet Discovery of the earliest known galaxies Youngest star ever detected Dark energy is found to be uniformly spread across the universe Planetary debris disks found around Sun-like stars Planetary debris disks found around Sun-like stars Wind “highways” carrying spores and vegetation bits account for similarity of plant species on islands thousands of kilometers apart First flight of X-43a scramjet First flight of X043a scramjet Frost flowers provide a source of ozone-destroying bromine Iron Oxide concretions in Utah are similar to those on Mars Satellite InSAR imagery shows geomorphological changes associated with past underground nuclear tests

152


Table 2 (continued). No. stories

Sponsor

Center

Program

Discovery

0.5

Y

JPL

GRACE

0.25

Y

GSFC

LAGEOS

0.25

ESA

ESA

LAGEOS

0.25

S

JPL

SST

0.1

S

HQ

Grants

0.02

S

GSFC

HST

0.5

M/U

HQ

NSBRI

0.125

Y

JPL

QuikSCAT

0.25

Y

JPL

TOPEX

0.125

Japan

0.5

Y

Demonstration of gravitational frame dragging and test of general relativity Demonstration of gravitational frame-dragging and test of general relativity Demonstration of gravitational frame dragging and test of general relativity Discovery of the youngest planet known and organic compounds in a space region with potential for planets Detection of three of the lightest known planets Detection of three of the lightest known planets A class of proteins seem to trigger muscle atrophy The onset of the El Ni˜ no phenomenon can be forecast as much as two years in advance The onset of the El Ni˜ no phenomenon can be forecast as much as two years in advance The onset of the El Ni˜ no phenomenon can be forecast as much as two years in advance Oxygen was present in small quantities on the Earth’s surface 2.32 billion years ago, 100 million years earlier than expected

ADEOS

ARC

Astrobiology

plus (b) the launch slips of the major planned missions of the 1980’s (Hubble, Galileo, Magellan, COBE, GRO) due to both developmental issues and the 3.5 year shuttle launch hiatus after Challenger was lost. At the end of the decade and into the 1990’s, NASA productivity soars as returns come from both from those 1980’s legacy missions as well new missions starting development in the 1990’s. Figure 2 exhibits the cumulative percent contri-


153

TABLE 3. NASA Enterprise Performance (1973-2004). Points 2004

Percent 2004

Points 2003

Percent 2003

5074

100

4865

100

Total “Most Important” stories in Science News

308.9 228.2 47.9 19.5 13.0 7.6

6.09 4.50 0.94 0.38 0.26 0.15

296.2 220.1 44.8 19.0 12.3 7.1

6.09 4.52 0.92 0.39 0.25 0.15

12.6 30.5

0.25 0.60

12.6 29.0

0.26 0.60

5.6

0.11

5.6

0.12

NASA Space Science Earth Science Human Exploration Aeronautics/Technology U.S Department of Defense (Space) Soviet Union/Russia (Space) European Space Agency (and member states) Japan (Space)

366.0

7.21

350.5

7.20

Total Space Activities

butions of individual missions, where it is seen that HST has contributed most significantly over time. 4. Synopsis The Science News Metrics, created under the auspices of NASA, have been instrumental for many years as one tool for determining the scientific discovery productivity of missions. The metric has merit because it relies on autonomous evaluation of data compiled independent of the agency. The metric has been compiled in a consistent manner for over 12 years and is valuable as a yearly probe of mission productivity and also draws strength as a multiple year measure of NASA science successes. The Science News Metrics fit well into the year-by-year analysis and reporting by NASA for internal purposes as well as to the federal government. The metric has shown that NASA’s contribution to world wide top science news stories has been approximately 5% overall with the Hubble Space Telescope dominating the performance. Other measures, such as the number of scientific refereed publications based on mission data, also provide useful retrospectives on productivity. Publication history is a measure not only of new scientific insights but also of the longevity and integrity of specific results over periods of time

154 CAROL A. CHRISTIAN AND GREG DAVIDSON

Figure 1.

Thirty one year history of NASA’s contribution to Science News top stories.

Cumulative Contributions of the 10 Most Productive NASA Programs 60

50

Points

30

20

10

0 1970

1975

1985

1990 Year

1995

2000

2005

2010

Individual NASA mission contribution to Science News top stories.

155

Figure 2.

1980


HST Voyager Viking Galileo Apollo STS GRO MGS Chandra Rockets & Balloons

40

156


longer than a year. Other metrics serve different purposes as well, and in combination can give a variety of perspectives on the success of NASA scientific endeavors within the agency and compared to other organizations. Acknowledgements This work is supported by a contract, NAS5-26555, to the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy, Inc. for the operation of the Hubble Space Telescope at Space Telescope Science Institute. Additional support for the annual production of the Science News Metric, performed by Luke Sollitt and Rick Ohlemacher, has been provided by contract SV3-73015, to Northrop Grumman Space Technology. References 1.

Christian, C.A. 2004, The Public Impact of HST: A Case Study, in Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy – Vol. 5, Ed. A. Heck, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht, 203-216.

A CITATION-BASED MEASURE OF SCIENTIFIC IMPACT WITHIN ASTRONOMY

FRAZER R. PEARCE

School of Physics and Astronomy University of Nottingham Nottingham NG7 2RD, United Kingdom [email protected] AND DUNCAN A. FORBES

Centre for Astrophysics and Supercomputing Swinburne University Hawthorn VIC 3122, Australia [email protected]

Abstract. We discuss the application of citation-based scientific impact measures described by Pearce (2004), listing various caveats and things to consider before they can be reliably applied. We also examine the 1000 most cited astronomy papers: as of December 2004, 279 citations were needed to obtain a place on this list. Using this list we count the number of papers published by each author, finding those astronomers with the most entries. For the 15 authors who appear most often we apply the impact measures of Pearce and compare these to those of the field as a whole. Finally we compare the output of the most cited members of the Astronomical Society of Australia to those at the University of Durham, illustrating the effect of a citation hotspot.

1. Introduction How does one objectively determine the “worth” of a scientific endeavour? In an era of limited total funds, if two projects are deemed equally worthwhile, how do you choose between them? This is an insidious question that is inherently impossible to answer: who is to say that any one field is “better” than another? With this in mind, we have attempted to generate some objective measures of scientific impact, whose worth is by definition 157 A. Heck (ed.), Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy 6, 157–168. © 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.

158

FRAZER R. PEARCE AND DUNCAN A. FORBES

limited: they should be applied with caution and come with a government health warning. Measures of scientific research output are scrutinized by government funding agencies, who wish to evaluate how well they have spent their monies, as well as forming part of the framework by which individuals and departments are ranked. In the UK for example, in the next Research Assessment Exercise, active researchers will be ranked as being of local, national or international standard by some as yet ill-defined procedure. Whether or not this process will involve any objective measure of performance is unclear at this stage. It is certainly true that citation counts are already often used by Universities and research institutes as a key measure for determining promotion within an organisation. On a more personal level, surely individual researchers have an interest in knowing which of their publications has been read and made an impact on their colleagues? Until recently, the most widely used measure of output was a simple count of the number of papers published in reputable refereed journals, with perhaps the added sophistication of a page count. Now though, thanks to the accessibility and usefulness of electronic searchable databases, the quantity of papers is rapidly being replaced as a measure of research output by some objective measure of research impact. Although far from perfect, the objective measure that is commonly used is a citation count, i.e. the number of times a given paper is referenced in other works and hence its impact within the discipline. As emphasized by Martin & Irvine (1983), citations should not be taken as a measure of a papers’ quality or importance. Citation counts are also complicated by the general growth in the number of papers published each year (Peterson 1988). A number of previous studies have conducted a citation analysis of astronomers and astronomy papers. These include several works by H.A. Abt (e.g. Abt 1980, 1981, 1984 & 1998), V. Trimble (e.g. Trimble 1985 & 1996) and E. Davoust and L. Schmadel (Davoust & Schmadel 1987, 1992). More recent studies have taken advantage of electronic databases, such as the Institute for Science Information (ISI) or the Astrophysical Data Services (ADS), to carry out more extensive citation searches. For example, Burstein (2000) created a list of cited papers for the years 1981 to 1997, their citation rate and the names of over 6000 astronomers world-wide. He went on to tabulate the most cited astronomers and the most cited astronomical papers over that time period. Sanchez & Benn (2004) investigated the influence of the host country institution of the first author on citations. The USA, UK, Switzerland and Canada were above the world average, an effect they attributed to their large communities and language bias. Recently, Schwarz & Kennicutt (2004) examined how citations for astronomy papers vary with demographics and the effect of ‘pre-publication’ on a preprint

MEASURE OF IMPACT WITHIN ASTRONOMY

159

server. Pearce (2004) used the ADS database to define the 1000 most-cited astronomy papers and calculate the frequency of papers that achieve certain citation thresholds. For example, in the last 5 years, a paper needs over 91 citations to be in the top 1% of the most-cited astronomy papers. He also calculated the relative ranking of research-active (defined as producing at least 5 papers in the last 5 years) astronomers world-wide. By performing a similar analysis of Australian astronomers using the Astronomical Society of Australia membership list we have determined that despite their relative isolation Australian astronomers compare well with the average citation rates determined by Pearce (2004). 2. Method Our preferred scheme, and the one whose advantages and limitations will be discussed here, is that of Pearce (2004). For convenience, we re-iterate the main methodology below; − Citations are measured over a rolling 5-year period that runs from 5 12 years ago up to six months prior to the present date. − Both the total number and the “normalised” number of citations received for all refereed papers published during the specified timeframe are counted. Obtaining a normalised citation count involves dividing each papers citation count by the number of authors. Citations are not counted in the previous six months because very few citations are generated in this period. A five year window corresponds to the average time for a paper to reach its maximum number of citations per year (Abt 1981), and also matches the typical grant and evaluation period of many funding agencies. For the two measures, the raw citation count is simply a measure of how many times a piece of work is cited, and takes no account of the number of authors. The normalised count reduces the citation count in inverse proportion to the number of authors. This reduces the effect noticed by Abt (1981) that the number of citations a paper receives linearly increases with the length of the author list, as well as reducing the problem of extensive collaborations producing large numbers of papers. Neither measure takes into account the position of the author in the author list, so that first author papers count equally with last author ones; so implicitly all authors contribute equally to a given paper. Both raw and normalised citations are relatively crude measures of impact; however they have the advantage of being simple, well-defined and transparent. More complicated measures, weighting an author’s contribution to any given paper more “correctly” would be impossible to apply in general without an agreed honour system listing these contributions, a state of play

160


that is unlikely to become reality in the near future. In any case, given that the majority of well published authors appear in a variety of positions in the author list and contribute various amounts to their portfolio the resultant impact measure would usually lie somewhere between the two rankings produced by the simple measures defined above. 2.1. CAVEATS

A number of caveats should be born in mind when applying our impact measures; they include: Author name confusion: Authors with the same surname and first initial are counted as the same person in the data generated by Pearce (2004). We note that name confusion was a significant effect in the study of worldwide astronomers by Burstein (2000). He advocated that astronomers be assigned individual identification numbers to address this problem. Such a measure would certainly greatly simplify the problem of correctly identifying authors and their papers. In all our work we have endeavoured to eliminate name confusion by using the middle initial facility of the ADS and hand inspection of the paper list returned for highly cited authors. This works less well once thousands of authors are to be considered. Sub-disciplines within astronomy: Different sub-disciplines within astronomy may have different relative citation rates. Trimble (1993a,b) found that for British and American astronomers, theorists were more cited than observers who were in turn more cited than instrument builders. Optical astronomy was the most cited wavelength regime, and cosmology/extragalactic astronomy the most cited research area. Incomplete citation index: In this study we used the ADS citation index. As noted on their web site “...citation lists in the ADS are not complete”. They go on to identify several sources of possible incompleteness, the main one affecting this study would be errors in page numbers within the citing paper. Timeliness: As it takes on average 5 years for a paper to reach its peak citation rate (Abt 1981), our 5 year window will favour those astronomers who are well established and productive at the start of the study period. Self citation: We have not attempted to remove self citation, but to first order this should affect all papers equally. For highly-cited papers, self citation will only represent a small fraction of the total. We note that Abt (1980) deemed self citation “statistically unimportant” at 6.4% of all citations. Citation of only ADS refereed papers: In this study we only include citations to and from refereed papers that are included in the ADS. Thus we do not include non-refereed conference papers, book articles etc, nor do we


161

include citations from journals that are not part of the ADS system (e.g. Quantum Gravity). Citation of technical papers: Some highly cited papers will be of a technical nature, or are largely data catalogues, such as photometric standard stars. In such cases, citations may reflect their usefulness to the community rather than scientific impact per se.

3. Applying the impact measures In practice, on an individual basis citation measures are of limited use beyond giving a rough indication of the impact a particular individual is currently making on their field. A normalised citation score of greater than 40 implies a good citation history over the previous 5 years, however, the difference between an impact of 40 and one of 80 could easily be dependent on other factors. When evaluating an individual score, consideration should be given as to whether or not a single paper is driving the result. For instance, Randall & Sundrum (1999a,b) accumulated over 1100 citations for each of their seminal contributions to string theory, resulting in an impact score of over 550 for each author for each paper. For these authors, their 5 year citation-based scores are about to dip dramatically as they are concentrated in a couple of papers. Obviously such a major contribution cannot simply be ignored, illustrating the danger of solely relying on recent publications as an exclusive determinant of scientific impact. Reliable, stable impact scores are achieved in a simple way: what is required is a history of papers each of which accumulates a decent number of citations. Normalising the citations by the number of authors leads to an even more stable result as this takes out the bias of large collaborations producing a large number of papers. Care should also be taken to check where an individual appears on the author list as no weighting is applied according to author position in the citation measures considered here. Ideally an individual will score highly on both raw citation and normalised citation count. Rather than applying the impact measures in general, a better use is for comparing researchers within the same subfield. This eliminates any widescale variation between one discipline and another. Another area where citation-based measures are weak is for young researchers who have not yet had sufficient time to build up a body of work and a reputation in their chosen area. Without a suitable baseline over which to assess work any citation or publication-based measure is obviously flawed. This problem can be somewhat alleviated by noting the date of an author’s first publication and the length of time that has elapsed since then.

162


Where the citation measures work well is in identifying individuals and areas who are effectively research inactive. Normalised citation scores below 10 indicate that an area is receiving very few citations or publishing little new material at the present time. This may of course be because the particular field is small or only peripherally related to astronomy but for mainstream areas such low scores, especially when combined with a low raw citation count of less than ∼ 100 are an indicator of research inactivity. One thing that is clear is that using citations obtained in a rolling five year window in order to measure impact is a procedure that pays little respect to age. As we will see in the next section, even some of the ‘superstars’ of modern astronomy obtain impact scores akin to those of mere mortals if we only look at their recent work. Researchers with well established track records do of course have an advantage when it comes to collecting citations but this effect isn’t so great if we limit the count to recently published material. The greats must continue to publish well read and cited material in order to continue to score well on these impact measures. This can lead to the situation where well established figures don’t do as well as they expect to in any ranking list produced using a window-based impact measure. This feature of the method is somewhat circumvented if an individual’s entire publication portfolio is considered; we would advocate also looking at the number of papers receiving more than 30 and 100 citations published by any given author. Papers with more than 30 citations have been noticed and well read by the field. As Pearce (2004) demonstrated, less than one paper in 50 papers achieves 100 citations, so this is a good indicator of a successful and useful piece of work. Books are also a good indicator of prowess in the field that can take a significant amount of time to produce and are sometimes well cited, but these are not included in the impact measures considered here. 4. 1000 most cited papers Given the citation counts per paper it is straightforward to extract the 1000 most cited papers from the ADS. An up-to-date listing is given on; http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/∼ppzfrp/top1000.html. As of December 22nd 2004, 279 citations were required in order to obtain a place on this list. By extracting full author lists and sorting it is possible to obtain Table 1, the number of the top 1000 most cited papers each astronomer listed has authored. Also shown in Table 1 are the total number of raw citations received by each author in their career, the total normalised number of citations (citations inversely weighted by author number), the number of citations divided by the normalised citation count, forming an estimate of the average number of authors per paper, and the number of refereed papers published.

163


TABLE 1. Number of top 1000 papers published by each author. Also, for the same authors, total raw lifetime citations (RC), normalised lifetime citations (NC), an estimate of the average number of authors per paper, total number of refereed papers, number of papers published in the last 5 year time interval plus the raw and normalised citation scores over this same timeframe (5RC & 5NC). The totals are for unique papers, and so do not tally with the numbers above as several papers appear under more than one author. Name

Top

RC

NC

Authors

Papers

5Pap

5RC

5NC

White S. D. M. Efstathiou G. Faber S. M. Frenk C. S. Rees M. J. Ostriker J. P. Sandage A. Dressler A. Huchra J. Gunn J. E. Kennicutt R. C. Blandford R. D. Burstein D. Davis M. Ellis R. S.

18 17 16 15 15 14 13 12 12 11 11 10 10 10 10

19309 17911 15881 16636 18901 19842 25609 13427 20277 19186 12181 12056 11523 15216 15927

6916 5094 3915 3938 9199 8002 15180 4604 5038 5828 6025 4901 3760 4774 2821

2.79 3.52 4.06 4.22 2.05 2.48 1.69 2.92 4.02 3.29 2.02 2.46 3.06 3.19 5.65

225 211 150 178 317 271 337 124 289 257 188 205 116 146 246

72 64 23 80 53 57 23 20 51 86 44 51 16 31 77

3374 3127 1660 4253 1058 2899 310 1432 2113 4943 1319 735 219 785 5008

539 454 224 398 405 503 93 134 236 202 173 162 30 116 414

Total

138

205267

3100

668

21601

3564

With this many papers published, often with various minor name changes, these figures are as accurate as possible but may not include every last paper. Some name confusion occurs for White, Faber, Gunn, Davis & Ellis but this has been circumvented by hand checking and the use of the middle initial lists maintained by the ADS. Just outside the authors listed in Table 1 with ten or more papers in the top 1000 list are; G. Neugebauer and D. Lynden-Bell with 9; F. H. Shu, A. Maeder, and C. Heiles with 8 and a host of people with seven; S. E. Woosley, P. B. Stetson, P. J. Steinhardt, M. Schmidt, P. L. Schechter, B. A. Peterson, B. Paczynski, C. F. McKee, I. Iben, T. M. Heckman, W. E. Harris, R. Green, A. V. Filippenko, A. C. Fabian, R. L. Davies, and J. R. Bond. Interestingly, several collaborations crop up with multiple entries. Easily top of this category are White & Frenk with 11 papers on which they are both signatories, with the foursome of White, Efstathiou, Frenk & Davis deserving an honorable mention as they contribute four papers. The other

164


Figure 1. Likelihood of an author achieving more than a specified number of citations within a recent 5 year window. The lower curve is for all authors publishing 2 or more papers in the interval, the upper curve is for active researchers with 5 or more recent papers. The labelled vertical lines show the 5 year citation counts for all authors with more than 10 papers within the 1000 most cited papers in astronomy.

major grouping is that of Faber, Dressler & Burstein who achieve nine entries in various combinations. Beyond these, Ostriker & Gunn, Rees & Blandford, and Huchra & Kennicutt all have four papers on which they are co-authors. These really are the superstars of modern astronomy; note that the fifteen authors listed in Table 1 have accumulated over 200,000 citations between them and published over 3,000 papers, each of which averages over 66 citations. They account for well over ten percent of the top 1000 most


165

Figure 2. Likelihood of an author achieving more than a specified number of citations within a recent 5 year window. The lower curve is for all authors publishing 2 or more papers in the interval, the upper curve is for active researchers with 5 or more recent papers. The labelled vertical lines show the 5 year normalised citation counts for all authors with more than 10 papers within the 1000 most cited papers in astronomy.

cited papers of all time. Normalising the citations by the number of authors reveals a scatter; Sandage, Kennicutt & Rees clearly publish much material either alone or with a small number of co-authors, as their normalised citation score is a significant fraction of their total citations. Conversely, Ellis, and to a lesser extent Frenk, Faber & Huchra often publish with quite a few co-authors. In Figures 1 & 2 we overlay the raw citation and normalised citation counts for the 15 authors with the most papers in the top 1000 on the

166


citation and normalised citation measures for astronomy as a whole derived by Pearce (2004). We have taken the logarithm of both axes as all these “superstars” appear at the high end. As can be seen from the figures, the 15 authors split into 3 groups: those making a massive current impact on the field; White, Ostriker, Efstathiou, Ellis, Rees & Frenk, those who are still highly active but no longer in the “superstar” category; Huchra, Faber, Gunn, Kennicutt, Blandford, Dressler & Davis, and those who are contributing at a more normal level; Sandage & Burstein. Given that the input to these figures is those authors who have published many eminent papers throughout the history of astronomy, it is perhaps most surprising how many of them are still highly active in the field. 5. Citation hotspots In examining the citation histories of the members of the ASA, we have uncovered the ASA members with the highest impact, ranked in Table 2 which gives the top 10. A similar analysis can be performed for the astronomers currently at the University of Durham, also shown on Table 2. The analysis was performed over the same period and at the same time as the ASA study, from March 1999 to February 2004. This produces a perhaps surprising result: measuring impact in this way Durham’s output is comparable to that of Australia. This is of course not a fair comparison given that the Australian research has a much broader base than that carried out in Durham. Still, this table illustrates many of the inherent problems of a purely citation-based statistic; citations rates vary with field, with cosmology and extra-galactic work receiving a particularly good return. Obviously; well organised, tightly knit, high profile groups can have a very large impact indeed. The totals obtained are for the unique set of papers published within the five year interval for each group. The more closely related Durham group appear to collaborate on more work (only 71% compared to 84% of their total papers are unique). Given the fact that the Durham group obtained a smaller number of raw citations but a larger number of normalised citations, it appears that the Australians tend to participate in larger collaborations on average, as would be expected for a geographically separated group. 6. Summary We have revisited the two measures of scientific impact suggested by Pearce (2004), further exploring potential biases and features of each method. Both are susceptible to problems if not applied carefully, with attention to an individual’s circumstances. They are best applied as general measures, in cases where an individual score is not the point of key interest. If a per-

167


TABLE 2. Australian/Durham Citation Rankings (3/99–2/04). The totals refer to unique papers (i.e. for the Australian figures, there were 443 not 526 individual papers). Name Couch, W Freeman, K Forbes, D Boyle, B Bessell, M Gibson, B Manchester, R Schmidt, B Colless, M Webster, R Total

papers

NC

RC

Name

56 99 40 43 30 67 63 44 41 43

210 200 153 142 142 138 138 134 122 122

3452 1591 540 1875 403 1609 877 1114 2019 559

Smail, I Frenk, C Cole, S Lacey, C Baugh, C Bower, R Eke, V Edge, A Done, C Jenkins, A

443/526

1243

9381

Total

Papers

NC

RC

65 74 40 36 39 36 9 31 32 25

400 378 243 218 193 176 148 144 136 112

2368 3138 2110 980 1577 681 498 604 403 854

276/387

1410

8589

sonal score is required then these measures should at best be seen as a rough indicator of a person’s performance. High values for both recent raw citations and normalised citations are a good sign, low values are not so good. We have also looked at the 1000 most cited papers in astronomy, with particular reference to those authors who have entered this list multiple times. For the 15 authors with the most papers on the top 1000 list we calculated their recent citation and normalised citation histories, and overplotted these on those for the field as a whole. Around half of these astronomy superstars are still having a huge impact on the field as a whole. Finally we demonstrated a potential problem with citation measures; small, well run groups can achieve very high citation and normalised citation scores indicating a huge impact within what may be a restricted discipline. References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9.

Abt, H.A. 1980, Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacific 92, 249. Abt, H.A. 1981, Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacific 93, 207. Abt, H.A. 1984, Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacific 96, 746. Abt, H.A. 1998, Publ. Astron.Soc. Pacific 110, 210. Burstein, D. 2000, Bull. Amer. Astron. Soc. 32, 917. Davoust, E. & Schmadel, L. 1987, Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacific 99, 700. Davoust, E. & Schmadel, L. 1992, Scientometrics 22, 9. Martin, B. & Irvine, J. 1983, J. Research Policy 12, 61. Pearce, F. 2004, Astrophys. & Geophys. 45, 215.

168 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18.

FRAZER R. PEARCE AND DUNCAN A. FORBES Peterson, C. 1988, Publ. Astron. Soc. Pacific 100, 106. Randall, L. & Sundrum, R. 1999a, Phys. Rev. Letters 83, 4690. Randall, L. & Sundrum, R. 1999b, Phys. Rev. Letters 83, 3370. Sanchez, S. & Benn, C. 2004, Astron. Nachr. 235, 445. Schwarz, G. & Kennicutt, R. 2004, Bull. Amer. Astron. Soc. 36, 1654. Trimble, V. 1985, Quart. J. Roy. Astron. Soc. 26, 40. Trimble, V. 1993a, Quart. J. Roy. Astron. Soc. 34, 301. Trimble, V. 1993b, Quart. J. Roy. Astron. Soc. 34, 235. Trimble, V. 1996, Scientometrics 36, 237.

A COMPARISON OF THE CITATION COUNTS IN THE SCIENCE CITATION INDEX AND THE NASA ASTROPHYSICS DATA SYSTEM

HELMUT A. ABT

Kitt Peak National Observatory P.O. Box 26732 Tucson AZ 85726-6732, USA [email protected]

Abstract. From a comparison of 1000+ references to 20 papers in four fields of astronomy (solar, stellar, nebular, galaxy), we found that the citation counts in Science Citation Index (SCI) and Astrophysics Data System (ADS) agree for 85% of the citations. ADS gives 15% more citation counts than SCI. SCI has more citations among physics and chemistry journals, while ADS includes more from conferences. Each one misses less than 1% of the citations.

1. Introduction Astronomers now have two independent sources for citation counts to papers, namely the Science Citation Index (SCI) and the NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS). Do they give the same results? The pioneering Science Citation Index was started in 1961 by Eugene Garfield at the Institute for Scientific Information in Philadelphia, PA to help people locate scientific papers by subjects and by authors in the rapidly-growing field of scientific publication (Abt 2003). However, a main use quickly became to collect citations and citation counts for individual papers, authors, institutions, and journals. Pertinent to the following discussion, the SCI has several criteria for the inclusion of journals. One is that they must have a proven record of prompt publication. When the SCI wishes to close a year, it does not want to delay publication because of tardy journal issues. Another criterion is that each journal be often cited in the field. Of the estimated 100,000 serial publication in Ulrich’s International Periodicals Directory, only the 169 A. Heck (ed.), Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy 6, 169–174. © 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.

170

HELMUT A. ABT

most-used 8700 journals in all the sciences are listed in SCI and only 42 of those are in astronomy and astrophysics. The SCI was initially available in printed form only (roughly several meters of volumes per year) but is now available on-line by subscription as the “Web of Science.” The other source for citation counts had a different origin. Many astronomers and institutions cannot afford the huge libraries needed for full scientific searches, but it is now possible to put volumes on-line. Guenther Eichhorn and Stephen D. Murray at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory undertook the large job with NASA funding of copying onto a computerized base all of the major astronomical journals. It became the ADS (see Eichhorn 2005). Those reproductions are like photographic images called bitmaps; they are not like the on-line versions of the Astrophysical Journal (ApJ) and Astronomical Journal (AJ) in which one can click on references in the text and they will appear in full on the screen. However, those bitmaps are now available for all of the major astronomical journals, many conference volumes, and some books; they are now copying many observatory publications. They make doing astronomical searches nearly as complete as in a major observatory library. Furthermore, this service is free whereas the SCI is expensive and can be afforded only by large libraries. An added attraction of these on-line astronomical publications is that through optically scanning reference lists, the citations within this body of publications to any paper in the set is given. Thus we have two sources (SCI and ADS) for obtaining citation counts for astronomical papers. However, they are based on different bodies of material. The SCI includes all the major journals in physics, chemistry, mathematics, and related sciences, while ADS is not that broad. SCI includes only the IAU symposia (because they are all published by one publisher), but not the IAU colloquia (which have a large variety of publishers and therefore are hard to find) or the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (ASP) conference series or most other conferences. ADS includes only those conferences for which it has received printed volumes. In its process of scanning pages in an optical reader, it must physically cut the pages from the volumes and therefore destroy the volumes. Neither source includes observatory publications, although ADS is working on those. However, few observatory publications are being published now so they are of decreasing importance. Increasing numbers of monographs (books) are being published so it becomes increasingly difficult to buy or scan them. A minor comment is that for Spanish names that include the mother’s maiden name as an apparent second family name, the SCI lists papers under the first one and ADS under the second one. Some astronomers have access only to the ADS, while others have access to both the SCI and ADS. How do citation counts from the two compare?

171

CITATION COUNTS IN SCI AND ADS

TABLE 1. Citation Counts in SCI and ADS for 20 Sample Papers. Field

Paper

SCI

ADS

Common to SCI & ADS

Solar

Appourchaux et al. (1997) Duvall et al. (1997) Frohlich et al. (1997) Kosovichev et al. (1997) Wilhelm et al. (1997)

16 48 75 122 183

23 58 90 131 205

14 38 63 94 169

Stars

Chakrabarty et al. (1997) Johns-Krull & Basri (1997) Prato & Simon (1997) Henry et al. (1997) Iben (1997)

42 31 35 36 52

44 29 37 48 69

41 28 35 34 51

Nebulae

Piskunov et al. (1997) Tafalla et al. (1997) Kudoh & Shibata (1997) Ryu et al. (1997) D’Alesso et al. (1997)

58 21 38 23 22

62 21 45 24 28

56 19 34 22 21

Galaxies

Murray & Chiang (1997) Goldader et al. (1997) Rand (1997) Prochaska & Wolfe (1997) Lara et al. (1997)

47 54 48 68 25

59 59 63 77 29

47 50 45 67 25

1044

1201

953

Sums

This study involves comparing citation lists for sample papers and provides lists of which citations are missing in each. 2. The survey We copied lists for five papers in each of four fields: solar physics, stellar astronomy, gaseous nebulae and the ISM, and galaxies. The papers were generally the first five published in 1997 in the appropriate journals: solar papers in Solar Physics and the others in ApJ. I wanted to include other journals (AJ and Astronomy and Astrophysics) but most of them yielded too few citations in eight years to give statistically-valid results. Table 1 gives the four fields, five papers in each, and citation counts until February 2005 in SCI and ADS, and the citations in common for the two.

172

HELMUT A. ABT

TABLE 2. Citations to the 20 Selected Papers Found in SCI but not in ADS. Advances in Space Research Annals of the New York Academy of Science (2) Annales de Physique Astronomy Reports (2) Astrophysics Astrophysics and Space Science (4) Chaos Comptes Rendes (2) Current Science (5) Earth Observations and Remote Sensing Geomagnetism & Aeronomy (2) Geophysical & Astronomical Fluid Dynamics Icarus IAU Symp. (32) International Journal of Modern Physics Izvestiya Akademii Nauk Series Fizicheskaya (7) Journal of Atmospheric Science & Terrestrial Physics Journal of Computational and Applied Mathematics (2) JGR – Space Physics J. Quant. Spectroscopy & Radiative Transfer Nuovo Cimento Physics & Chemistry of the Earth Progress in Theoretical Physics Supplement Publications of the Astronomical Society of Japan Quaternary Science Review Recherche Review of Scientific Instruments (2) Science (2) Space Science Reviews

From the sums of the last three columns of Table 1 we see that ADS lists 15.0±4.2% more citations than ADS. From the first and third columns of numbers, we see that SCI and ADS have 85% of their citations in common (91% of the SCI citations and 79% of the ADS citations). Therefore at the 15% level of accuracy, the two sources give similar counts, but within that accuracy there are selection differences. Now consider the 1044 – 953 = 91 citations listed in SCI but not in ADS. Our sample of 20 papers has a total of 28 journals that are not cited very often (maximum of 7 for Izvestiya Akademii Nauk Series Fizicheskaya) plus 32 citations to IAU Symposia. Those journals plus symposia are listed

CITATION COUNTS IN SCI AND ADS

173

in Table 2. The numbers following the titles are the numbers of times they cited the 20 papers. In addition, there are 8 citations too recent for SCI and 3 errors in ADS. TABLE 3. Citations to the 20 Selected Papers Found in ADS but not in SCI. ASP Conference series (103) Other conferences (106) Books (7) Too recent to be included in SCI (8) Misc. journals (JKAS, Mem. D. Soc. A. Ital., IBVS) (7) Wrong references (6) Omitted by SCI (10)

TABLE 4. Citing Papers omitted in SCI. Citing Paper

Cited Paper

Unruh et al. (1997) Basu (1958) Tikhomolov (1998) Perez & Doyle (2000) Spadaro et al. (2000) Psaltis & Chakrabarty (1999) Gonzalez (1998) Iben & Tutukov (1998) Moy et al. (2001) Prochaska & Wolfe (1997)

Frohlich et al. (1997) Kosovichev et al. (1997) Kosovichev et al. (1997) Wilhelm et al. (1997) Wilhelm et al.(1997) Chakrabarty et al. (1997) Henry et al. (1997) Iben (1997) Goldader et al. (1997) Prochaska & Wolfe (1997)

Now consider the 1201 – 954 = 247 citations listed in ADS but not in SCI. Those are listed in Table 3, and are primarily conference papers. The differences between SCI and ADS counts would be nearly halved if SCI included ASP conference papers; like the criterion used to include IAU symposia, all ASP conference papers are published by the same publisher. Therefore users of these two sources of citation counts have to decide whether they wish to have included the many secondary physics and astronomy journals (in SCI) or the many conference papers (that are not refereed papers) in the ADS. We found 10 journal papers listed in ADS but not in SCI. Those omissions in SCI are listed in Table 4. That omission of 10 papers relative to the

174

HELMUT A. ABT

1044 papers found constitutes a 1.0% error, which agrees with the similar error found by Abt (2005) in a survey of Solar Physics papers. 3. Conclusions (1) SCI and ADS give the same citation counts for 85% of the papers. (2) That percentage would increase to 92% if SCI included ASP conference papers. (3) ADS has 15% more citations than SCI. (4) The primary difference is that SCI includes citations from a wide variety of physics, chemistry, and mathematics journals while ADS includes many more conference papers. References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. 10. 11. 12. 13. 14. 15. 16. 17. 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23. 24. 25. 26. 27. 28. 29. 30. 31. 32. 33.

Abt, H.A. 2003, in Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy Vol. 4, Ed. A. Heck, Kluwer Acad. Publ., Dordrecht, p. 197. Abt, H.A. 2005, Bull. Amer. Astron. Soc., in press. Appourchaux, T. et al. 1997, Solar Phys. 170, 27. Basu, S. 1998, Monthly Not. Roy. Astron. Soc. 298, 719. Chakrabarty, D. et al. 1997, Astrophys. J. 474, 414. D’Alessio, P. et al. 1997, Astrophys. J. 474, 397. Duvall, T.L. 1997, Solar Phys. 170, 63. Frohlich, C. et al. 1997, Solar Phys. 170, 1. Eichhorn, G. 2005, this volume. Goldader, J.D. et al. 1997, Astrophys. J. 474, 104. Gonzales, G. 1998, Astron. Astrophys. 334, 221. Henry, G.W. et al. 1997, Astrophys. J. 474, 503. Iben, I., Jr. 1997, Astrophys. J. 475, 291. Iben, I., Jr. & Tutukov, A.V. 1998, Astrophys. J. 501, 263. Johns-Krull, C.M. & Basri, G. 1997, Astrophys. J. 474, 433. Kosovichev, A.G. et al. 1997, Solar Phys. 170, 43. Kudoh, T. & Shibata, K. 1997, Astrophys. J. 474, 362. Lara, L. et al. 1997, Astrophys. J. 474, 179. Moy, E. et al. 2001, Astron. Astrophys. 365, 347. Murray, N. & Chiang, J. 1997, Astrophys. J. 474, 91. Perez, M.E. & Doyle, J.G. 2000, Astron. Astrophys. 360, 331. Piskunov, N. et al. 1997, Astrophys. J. 474, 315. Prato, L. & Simon, M. 1997, Astrophys. J. 474, 455. Prochaska, J.X. & Wolfe, A.M. 1997, Astrophys. J. 487, 73. Prochaska, J.X. & Wolfe, A.M. 1997, Astrophys. J. 474, 140. Psaltis, D. & Chakrabarty, D. 1999, Astrophys. J. 521, 332. Rand, R.J. 1997, Astrophys. J. 474, 129. Ryu, D. et al. 1997, Astrophys. J. 474, 378. Spadaro, D. et al. 2000, Astron. Astrophys. 359, 716. Tafalla, M. et al. 1997, Astrophys. J. 474, 329. Tikhomolov, E. 1998, Astrophys. J. 499, 905. Unruh, Y.C. et al. 1997, Astron. Astrophys. 345, 635. Wilhelm, K. et al. 1997, Solar Phys. 170, 75.

LETTERS TO THE EDITOR OF THE AAS NEWSLETTER: A PERSONAL STORY

JEFFREY L. LINSKY

JILA University of Colorado and NIST Boulder CO 80309-0440, USA [email protected]

Abstract. Since 1987 the American Astronomical Society Newsletter has published some 142 Letters to the Editor that provide the personal statements and concerns of astronomers about the policies, priorities, and experiences of being an astronomer. While these Letters do not provide a scientific sampling of the issues, they do provide an illuminating picture of the astronomical scene as seen from the perspectives of our colleagues. I describe the history and policies of the Letters section, then summarize the issues presented and debated in these Letters. The topics (in order of numbers of Letters published) are: (1) publishing and refereeing, (2) how the AAS and IAU conduct their business, (3) jobs and how to get them, (4) support for astronomy, (5) scientific units and time, (6) public policy issues, (7) planning for telescopes and space missions, (8) how astronomers do their work, (9) women in astronomy, (10) the work environment, and (11) other issues. A chronological list of the Letters by title and author is included.

1. History There is an old proverb that says, if my memory is correct, “be careful what you ask for”. Perhaps I should have thought about this earlier, but then I would not be writing this chapter. It is no secret that when talking to other astronomers, we discuss more than just our latest scientific results. We also talk about other matters that concern us such as the policies and priorities of the government funding agencies, the lack of opportunities for permanent positions, whether women and minorities are judged fairly, and concern about the quality of refereeing of our scientific papers and 175 A. Heck (ed.), Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy 6, 175–189. © 2006 Springer. Printed in the Netherlands.

176

JEFFREY L. LINSKY

observing proposals. In short, the policies, priorities, and practicalities of our chosen field are matters of vital concern to all of us. Unfortunately, there has been no mechanism for widely disseminating such concerns as the refereed journals publish only scientific articles. The magazines of more general interest like Science, Nature, and Sky and Telescope, discuss some of these matters but without the give and take of a dialog or the benefit of personal perspectives. After considerable thought about this lack of an appropriate communication channel, I teamed with some of my colleagues to write a letter to the American Astronomical Society requesting that the AAS Newsletter publish Letters to the Editor. In this 1987 letter, we pointed out that the AAS Newsletter had wide circulation among astronomers in North America and elsewhere, but the information flow in the Newsletter had been only in one direction. What was needed was a forum whereby individual astronomers could bring their concerns about vital issues to a large audience in order to influence how their issues would be addressed. We envisioned that the Letters to the Editor would be personal communications from the authors without either formal or informal endorsement by their institutions. Apparently the AAS Council thought highly of this modest proposal as our letter was published in the March 1987 issue of the Newsletter together with an announcement that Letters to the Editor would now be welcome and should be sent to the new Associate Editor, Letters – namely myself. I had not volunteered for this august position, but I could hardly say no given our public statement. This is how the Letters section started, and after some 18 years and 142 Letters, it is a fixture of the AAS Newsletter with the same Associate Editor. 2. Policies for the Letters Section When we started the Letters to the Editor section, the AAS Office and I agreed on a set of policies, which have not materially changed since then: (1) The Associate Editor, Letters would be appointed for a one-year renewable term. I was appointed for this term but have never received formal notice of reappointment or termination, so I guess that I have been granted a lifetime tenure. However, I would not be adverse to standing down if someone else were to desire the position. (2) The Associate Editor has the license to choose and edit correspondance for publication. Although the Editor of the Newsletter has the final say as to what is published, I cannot remember a single occasion when the Editor decided not to publish a Letter. In all likelihood, the AAS Office was pleased to have the task of saying no to authors placed outside of their responsibility. I have exercised my license with restraint. My main

LETTERS TO THE AAS NEWSLETTER EDITOR

177

concern is that Letters address only issues pertaining to astronomy and astronomers. Complaints about or attacks on individuals are not allowed. I also require authors to keep to one specific topic in a Letter and to write (or rewrite) their Letter in clear, unambiguous prose. If I am confused by what an author is trying to say, then the general reader would likely also be perplexed. (3) Authors of Letters may not be anonymous. At the same time, the Letters represent what an individual wishes to say without the implication that his/her institution supports what the author says. To make this clear, the Letters are signed by the author with either his/her email address or city. While anyone can look up the university, observatory, or laboratory where the author works, not citing the author’s place of employment makes it clear that the Letter is a personal statement. This is especially important for US government employees. (4) We try to present both sides of a controversial topic in the same issue of the Newsletter. Since the publishing time between individual Newsletters can be as long as 2 1/2 months, I try to solicit a Letter with an opposing view to be published with the first Letter when an issue is clearly controversial and timely. However, deadlines often make this impossible. When this happens, Letters with contrary viewpoints are published in the next issue. (5) Letters should be short, about 250 words. This requirement was instituted because of limited space in the Newsletter and because readers typically pay more attention to short articles than long ones. I must admit, however, that a number of Letters not meeting this criterion have been published. This typically occurs when an issue is just too complex to be addressed adequately in 250 words. Contrary to my apprehensions, my interactions with authors have almost always been cordial, despite the strong words that some authors use when stating their case on controversial topics. When I have asked authors to tone down their rhetoric, or keep to the topic, or shorten their Letter by deleting some of their favorite prose, the response has always been positive. I hope that this cordiality continues. Most of the time I request that authors revise their original draft to clarify their message or address related issues to improve the presentation. Authors usually make the changes and sometimes even thank me for suggesting them. One well-known astronomer sent me an email saying, “I was admirative [sic] of the way you were not automatically accepting what was written and were pushing me to explain what I meant exactly. A good exercise too and I am also grateful for the lesson or model in this respect.” Another well-known astronomer once asked me the purpose of the Letters section since most of the Letters involve complaints of some sort. I

178

JEFFREY L. LINSKY

responded by saying that many Letters are constructive, proposing solutions to problems or calling attention to what needs fixing. I also said that it is important for people to be heard. My experience is that after people know that their concerns and opinions are in print and available for some 6,000 members of the AAS to read and think about, they feel satisfied that they have accomplished something positive. One happy result is that potentially heated issues are discussed in a rational manner rather than in emotional confrontations at meetings and elsewhere. 3. What are the issues that the Letter writers have chosen to address? In the table at the end of this paper, I give a time-ordered list of the 142 Letters published in the AAS Newsletter between June 1987 and October 2004. The following is a topical summary of them. 3.1. PUBLISHING AND REFEREEING (23 LETTERS)

Given what astronomers say to each other in private conversations, it is not surprising that the publication process would be the topic of the largest number of Letters. Three Letters questioned the refereeing system for articles published in the astronomical journals. One Letter urged that authors be entitled to make the final decision on whether or not to publish a paper when there is a major disagreement with the referee. It further advocated allowing the journal editor to publish his remarks or those of the referee at the end of a paper. Another Letter stated that the quality of refereeing would improve if referees were strongly encouraged to make their identity known. Arguments for and against the refereeing of papers in conference proceedings were presented in another Letter. Six Letters tackled the question of why the change to electronic publishing was not leading to a decrease in expensive page charges for publishing in the astronomical journals. This exchange provided transparency into the actual cost of publishing and elicited statements from the journal editors that after a transition period while the journals learned to processes AASTEX manuscripts efficiently, there should be a decrease in page charges and more rapid publication. Two Letters addressed the validity of a survey on the desirability of electronic publishing. Even the term “electronic publishing” elicited a Letter in which the author argued that the proper term for describing the whole environment of dealing with documents electronically should be “electronic information handling”. The question of why ApJ Letters papers occasionally exceed the four page limit (usually by a small amount) led to a response that the existing imprecise system of estimating the length of a paper would be replaced by a macro that would provide an accurate estimate. One au-


179

thor complained that footnotes acknowledging that data were obtained at a specific observatory supported by an identified funding agency are boring and should not be required by observatories. This lively issue led to three Letters supporting or opposing the deletion of such footnotes. Finally, reflecting the concern that astronomers have for the environment, one Letter asked why the Astrophysical Journal does not use recycled paper, eliciting a response that this issue was being considered as the technical problems were being ironed out. 3.2. HOW THE AAS AND IAU CONDUCT THEIR BUSINESS (19 LETTERS)

Voting procedures, the method of selection of Nominating Committee members, and the need for candidates to say in their published statements how they would address major issues were identified as ways to strengthen governance at the AAS. The question of whether a balance (in gender, age, and experience) of nominees for AAS Council positions is desirable or whether competence alone should determine nominees produced a lively debate. The Shapley Visiting Lecturer in Astronomy program was cited as an important tool for public education and the advancement of research, consequently, the program needed more funding. In the words of a retiring councilor, the rapid growth of the AAS was cited as the reason that the Society was becoming less of a community and more of an organization. He offered suggestions for enhancing the community feeling of the AAS. The question of whether it is better for individual AAS members or the AAS leadership to contact Congress concerning funding was discussed in three Letters, which concluded that the whole astronomical community should play an active role. Ten astronomers stated in a Letter that the IAU was making important decisions through votes by the national representatives without notifying or soliciting input from individual members. In response, the IAU President and General Secretary stated that according to the IAU Statutes, changes in the Statutes can only be made by votes of the representatives of the adhering national bodies, and that votes at General Assemblies are generally attended by only a small fraction of the membership. 3.3. JOBS AND HOW TO GET THEM (16 LETTERS)

Beginning in 1993, the difficulty that many astronomers faced in finding employment in the field stimulated a large number of Letters. Five Letters spoke of the difficulty of finding permanent jobs in astronomy. They argued that there was an overproduction of PhD astronomers and that, as a result, young astronomers should consider alternatives to astronomy research and teaching positions. Given the anguish that many young astronomers face

180

JEFFREY L. LINSKY

after graduate school, one author advised that incoming students should be given a “full heart-stopping disclosure” of the job situation and encouraged to cross-train in other fields. A contrary view held that birth control is not good, since winnowing of the field is inevitable and even healthy for all professions. One positive Letter encouraged postdocs to acquire teaching experience to better prepare themselves for a permanent position. Two concerns of astronomers going into nontraditional fields were that (1) mechanisms for retraining astronomers, perhaps with the help of the AAS, need to be created and (2) astronomers should not look down on those who pursue nontraditional fields. Other concerns included age discrimination in employment, the glut of letters of recommendation (which could be reduced by requesting them only for candidates who survive the first cut), the need for a uniform application deadline for postdoctoral positions, and the need for a “consumer’s digest” of astronomical departments. 3.4. SUPPORT FOR ASTRONOMY (14 LETTERS)

Concerns about federal funding for astronomy and its distribution were identified in eight Letters. Specific concerns included too few ground-based telescopes for coordinated observations with NASA’s great observatories, the need for international collaborations to fund large new facilities, and the lack of travel support to observe at NOAO facilities. One Letter pointed out that while NSF’s grant support for astronomy has been level or decreasing, NASA’s astronomy grant funding had been increasing significantly. However, four Letters argued that the support for ground-based astronomy by the NSF had fallen to a critical level and could not be compensated for by NASA’s increased support of other aspects of astronomy. One author proposed that the NSF establish a program of small support grants for retired or almost retired astronomers who are still engaged in research. Funding support was requested for the measurement of fundamental atomic and molecular data. Finally, one Letter urged astronomers to play a more active role in urging that NASA place more emphasis on scientific projects and less on manned exploration. 3.5. SCIENTIFIC UNITS AND TIME (14 LETTERS)

Only an astronomer could love (and perhaps understand) the very technical topics addressed in some Letters. A total of seven Letters discussed the pros and cons of astronomers adopting and using the International System of units (SI) whose basic units include the meter, kilogram, second, and Angstrom, Jansky, parsec, or other prefixes every factor of 103 , but not the ˚ units that astronomers love. The responses to this Letter were mainly negative with some authors decrying “political correctness”. The cumbersome


181

way of expressing time in terms of hours, minutes, and seconds led another astronomer to propose that we decimalize our units of time and even rationalize the stellar magnitude system. Three technical aspects of timekeeping raised in Letters were the potential change to coordinated universal time, discussions about whether or not to abolish leap seconds, and methods for standardizing how to express calendar dates in journal articles. 3.6. PUBLIC POLICY ISSUES (14 LETTERS)

The single largest public policy question, addressed in four Letters, was how astronomers should respond to attempts by states and local school boards to require that creationism be taught in public schools. A related concern was the public’s inadequate understanding of scientific methodology. These Letters provided advice on how scientists can effectively deal with both issues. The AAS has a policy on creationism adopted in January 1982. The proposal that the AAS make an official statement concerning global climate change stimulated three Letters opposing the statement on the grounds that the topic was a highly controversial political issue and that, as scientists, we may have only a limited understanding of this highly complex problem. A responding Letter argued that, as scientists, we have the responsibility to educate the public on matters within our scientific expertise. Other Letters on public policy raised concerns about light pollution in Southern California, opposition to the building of telescopes on Mt Graham, and the deterioration of the space environment for astronomical satellites. One Letter provided advice to astronomers on how to interest young people in astronomy, while another Letter advised astronomers to take steps to prevent the media from “spinning” statements made during an interview into a colorful, but inaccurate, story. 3.7. PLANNING FOR TELESCOPES AND SPACE MISSIONS (13 LETTERS)

Astronomers are always planning for the future because new telescopes, especially observatories in space, have very long gestation periods. Arguably, astronomers are better at reaching a consensus and at presenting our requests in a coherent way to funding agencies than most other scientists. Some Letters discussed issues, such as future planetary science missions, the need for international collaborations, the balance between small and large facilities, and adequate infrastructure, that upcoming Astronomy Survey Committees should address. One Letter called for the continuation of a specific observatory, specifically the International Ultraviolet Explorer (IUE). The need for astronomers to serve as program officers at the NSF and NASA was stressed in another Letter. Three Letters described the importance of virtual observatories and on-line catalogs. The absence of tan-

182

JEFFREY L. LINSKY

gible rewards, like guaranteed observing time, for astronomers who spend an enormous effort to build instruments for ground-based telescopes was cited in three Letters as a major discouragement to building important new instruments in the future.

3.8. HOW ASTRONOMERS DO THEIR WORK (9 LETTERS)

Many Letters expressed concerns about how astronomers do their work. With respect to observing, astronomers noted the importance of timely observations of targets of opportunity, the need for advice concerning imaging IR arrays, and the desirability of timing for IR cameras. NOAO budget cuts and the construction of 3 to 4 meter class private telescopes led one astronomer to propose the formation of a national small telescope network. While astronomers now consider data bases as essential tools in their work, an August 1990 Letter requesting information on establishing an interactive data base for multiwavelength programs was visionary. Another Letter pointed out the value of participating in high school science fairs as a means of recruiting future astronomers. One Letter requested that professional astronomers recognize the abilities of many amateur astronomers in obtaining high quality observations. Finally, several Letters provided practical advice to astronomers presenting posters and giving talks about their work at professional meetings.

3.9. WOMEN IN ASTRONOMY (8 LETTERS)

These Letters addressed the question of whether there is a level playing field for women in employment, salary, and recognition of achievements through the awarding of prizes by the AAS. One Letter pointed out that young women astronomers face fewer problems than the older generation did when they were young and continue to face even today. Another requested that surveys about employment of women astronomers be done correctly, and another requested that the existing strict age limit requirements for the AAS awards makes it difficult for those whose careers are interrupted by things outside of astronomy. The endorsement by the AAS of the “Baltimore Charter for Women in Astronomy”, which called for affirmative action in the hiring and advancement of women and action to end sexual harassment, elicited concerns in one Letter and support in another. I am surprised that there have not been any Letters concerning problems faced by minority astronomers.


183

3.10. THE WORK ENVIRONMENT (5 LETTERS)

The presence of degrading images of women at astronomical facilities was raised by a 1987 Letter signed by 51 astronomers. This Letter led to two responses. Another Letter discussed life as a gay astronomer. Out of concern for safety, one Letter advised astronomers not to drive after a long night of observing. 3.11. OTHER ISSUES (11 LETTERS)

The remaining Letters included public thanks for service to the community, requests for historical information or data (sky spectra at the times of intense solar flares and information concerning Project Moonwatch in the 1950s to 1970s), information about international meetings, and requests for help for astronomers and observatories in other countries. 4. Final thoughts Looking back at the Letters published over a period of 18 years, I am pleased that many issues of concern to astronomers have been addressed in a rational way in the Letters section. In many cases, there have been important dialogs in which different astronomers dispute or support the statements made in the original Letters, leading to a fuller understanding of the issue. In some cases, I believe that Letters have actually led to solutions or at least ameliorations of problems. Are there some issues that have become less or more important as measured by the publication rate of Letters? The issues of refereeing of journal articles and page charges appear to be of less concern recently as the most recent Letter on these topics was published in 1997. The last Letter pertaining to problems or opportunities in the job market was published in 1998, but I seriously doubt that such problems have disappeared. On the other hand, public policy issues such as global climate change and “scientific creationism” are generating an increasing number of Letters. There are some issues that have not been raised at all or addressed in only limited ways. One is the funding priorities of NASA and the NSF. A second is the consequences of the huge oversubscription of observing time on large telescopes, especially those in space. A third is the appropriateness of the recommendations made by advisory committees such as the Astronomy Survey Committees run by the National Academy of Sciences each decade. A fourth is the working environment and frustrations of faculty, postdocs, and graduate students. Given what I hear astronomers say to each other, I would have expected to receive and publish more Letters concerning such matters. While astronomers are often highly opinionated individuals, few

184

JEFFREY L. LINSKY

of us apparently have the guts to go public on some issues that affect us all in major ways. In particular, the important question of Hubble refurbishment has never been mentioned in a Letter. I am uneasy and disappointed at the number of times that astronomers who have voiced important problems to me also refused to put their concerns into print despite my strong encouragement. In any case, I look forward to receiving your Letters on key issues of concern in astronomy. I promise to give your Letter careful attention and will most likely offer suggestions for making your case more cogent.

Acknowledgements I would like to thank the Editors of the AAS Newsletter Peter Boyce and Robert Milkey for their tolerance and support and the Assistant Editors Pamela Hawkins, Carol Hartley, Heather Dalterio, Judy Johnson, Lynn Scholz, and Crystal Tinch for their help on many occasions. A final thanks is due to the many Letter authors who have taken the time to write and then rewrite their contributions.

List of Topics Appearing in the Following Table A B C D E F G H I J K L M N

How astronomers do their work Publishing and refereeing Jobs and how to get them The work environment Thanks for service to the community Support for astronomy Astronomy outside of North America Planning for future telescopes and space missions How the AAS conducts its business Public policy issues Women in astronomy How the IAU conducts its business Historical information Scientific units and time


185

A time-ordered listing of the Letters to the Editor. Date

Topic

Title

Authors

6/87 6/87

A C

Target of opportunity observations Management fees for the journals

12/87 12/87 12/87

C D E

3/88 3/88 3/88 3/88 6/88

D D F G B

6/88 6/88

A F

8/88 8/88

B A

8/88 10/88 10/88 3/89

E H H I

3/89 6/89

A F

10/89

J

10/89

K

12/89

F

12/89

N

3/90

F

3/90 3/90 3/90 3/90

F F F N

Application deadline chaos Degrading posters in observatories Thank you to the people who produced the AAS Photo-bulletin Degrading images and the first amendment Degrading images and the first amendment “Crack” in federal funding Eastern Europeans need journals Who feels the need to reform journal refereeing procedures How to improve posters at AAS meetings A modest proposal concerning funding for astronomy Alternative to proposed journal referee system A proposal to establish a national small telescope network James C. Kemp: pioneer Questions for astronomy in the 1990’s Role of planetary science in the next ASC Important issues not included in the candidate’s statement Advice to speakers No travel money to observe at Kitt Peak and Cerro Tololo Protecting the space environment for astronomical research More on “a comparison of university salaries for women and men” The funding problem for astronomy is not the total funds available, but their distribution Request for input from astronomers using imaging IR array data Responses to David Morrison’s letter concerning the funding problem ” ” ” ” ” ” ” ” ” A plea for builders of IR cameras to allow for accurate timing

R. Stencel H. Abt, & J. Huchra R.J. Havlen 51 authors B. Schoening J. Felton G.S. Brown J. Stocke M. Slovak H. Arp G. Verschuur D. Harris Ph. Hughes J. Cardelli R. Stencel Br. Balick R. Brown D. Harris K. Krisciunas C. Ambruster D.E. Harris & 2 others M. Kaufman D. Morrison M. Burton P.A. Vanden Bout R. Humphreys J. Mathis N. Devereux E. Dunham

186

JEFFREY L. LINSKY A time-ordered listing of the Letters to the Editor (continued).

Date

Topic

3/90

A

6/90

I

6/90

A

8/90 8/90 8/90 8/90

F I J B

8/90

B

8/90

A

10/90 10/90

J I

12/90

K

Request for input to “MultiWaveLink: an interactive data base for the coordination of multiwavelength programs” A reply to Peter Boyce’s editorial A reply to Don Osterbrock concerning democratic procedures Reconsidering age limits for AAS awards

12/90

B

Reply to Elson-Campbell letter

3/91

N

6/91 8/91

B I

8/91 8/91 8/91 10/91

B B B A

Coordinate decimalization: an astronomical revolution for the millennium Why publish material of no interest to readers? A much closer look at the membership survey results Response to Popper’s letter - I Response to Popper’s letter - II Response to Popper’s letter - III An open letter to directors and chairs of observatories and other astronomical departments and institutions A final note concerning footnotes Development threatens southern California observatories The future of IUE is up to you ApJ Letters policy A respone to Tom Statler Congratulations to the winners of the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Metal

10/91 10/91

B J

10/91 6/92 6/92 8/92

H B B E

Title How “not” to succeed in giving a poster presentation Election reforms and the real issues confronting the AAS Members should get involved with future astronomers NASA and NSF funds benefit all disciplines AAS is democratic Call for involvement in promoting astronomy A response to Helmut Abt’s call for refereeing conference papers Recycled paper for the AAS journals

Authors A. Heck H. Arp A.Nash D. Morrison D. Osterbrock L. Jacobson S. van den Bergh R. Elson & A. Campbell

Fr. Cordova D. Shaffer H. Arp S. Madden & M. Barsony H. Abt & E. Conner R. White D. Popper A. Campbell H. Abt P. McCullough S. Wolff M. Cummins & P. Dominy D. Popper Sh. Rush S. Starrfield T. Statler A. Dalgarno E. Wright

187


A time-ordered listing of the Letters to the Editor (continued). Date

Topic

12/92 3/93

K H

6/93 8/93

M B

8/93 8/93 8/93

B B N

10/93

I

10/93

I

10/93 10/93 10/93 12/93 12/93 12/93 12/93

N N N N B B I

12/93 12/93 12/93

N C K

12/93 12/93 3/94

B M G

3/94

F

3/94

K

3/94 3/94 3/94 6/94

N C H C

Title

Authors

Objections to proposed feminist bylaw A letter to all astronomers: we are needed in Washington Let’s have the truth about Gemini Electronic publishing should reduce journal page charges Reply from the editor of the Astronomical Journal Reply from the editor of the Astrophysical Journal When and how should astronomers move to the International System of Units? AAS must communicate with members not on internet Response concerning communications with members not on internet Response to Hale Bradt concerning SI Units, 1 Response to Hale Bradt concerning SI Units, 2 Response to Hale Bradt concerning SI Units, 3 Page charges are not needed Page charges are needed Michael Turner’s response An open letter on the future of the Shapley program A recommendation concerning SI Units Over the hill at age 35? Sexist “Baltimore Charter” should not become AAS policy Journal page charges More astronomers have won Nobel Prizes Support needed for astronomers in Eastern Europe and the Third World Support for basic research and education is required Support for the AAS Council’s endorsement of the Baltimore Charter Is pc not PC? The status of non-traditional positions in astronomy This old observatory Reorienting and retraining astronomers for non-traditional careers

J. Felton M. Rieke L. Robinson M. Elitzur P. Hodge H. Abt H. Bradt V. Slabinski P. Boyce B. Gawne D. Grey H. Abt M. Turner H. Abt M. Turner S. Shore H. Bradt G. Clayton J. Felten P. Boyce J. Tenn C. Barrow A. Melott Cl. Canizares M. Seaton J. Cardelli R. Stencel R. Foster

188

JEFFREY L. LINSKY A time-ordered listing of the Letters to the Editor (continued).

Date

Topic

8/94

G

10/94 10/94 12/94 3/95

C N B C

3/95 8/95 8/95 8/95 12/95

H I I I F

3/96

B

3/96 8/96 8/96 10/96

B I I C

12/96

C

12/96

I

3/97 6/97

I C

8/97

A

8/97

C

8/97

C

8/97 10/97

C B

10/97 6/98

D C

8/98

E

Title Appreciation of support for the national observatory of Venezuela Letter of recommendation overkill A uniform system of calendar dates What is electronic publishing? The need for a “consumer’s digest” of astronomical departments Small telescopes are critical for astronomy Who should contact members of congress - I Who should contact members of congress - II Who should contact members of congress - III Molecular spectra data center terminated Are the results of the electronic manuscript submission survey flawed? Reply: the community is connected Thoughts from a retiring AAS Councilor Individual lobbying not working Sage advice concerning the overproduction of astronomy PhDs Careers beyond the confines of academia can be rewarding Nominating committee’s slate lacks charisma and balance A reply to Jim Felton Anguish in the job market - a response to Joshua Roth Recognition of AAS amateurs who have demonstrated abilities for astronomical research Advice concerning the overproduction of astronomy PhDs Is there a social cost to “excess” astronomy PhDs Another view of the job market Peer review as a measure for amateur-professional collaboration Drinking, driving and observing How to insure that no new instruments are built for ground-based telescopes Thanks

Authors N. Calvet J. Murthy Tr. Kohman A. Heck H. Marshall S. Hawley N. Devereux Fr. Shu P. Boyce L. Snyder & M. Hollis W. Sullivan, III J. Barnes Br. Balick 12 astronomers M. Pound J. Roth J. Felton A. Harris P. Barnes

R. Fried G. Reaves J. Pitesky A. Filippenko R. Wilds S. van den Bergh J. Cohen V. Dixon


189

A time-ordered listing of the Letters to the Editor (continued). Date

Topic

Title

Authors

8/98 8/98

C C

There is a positive side to instrument building Those who fund telescopes must invest in and encourage promising instrumentalists Beware of spin doctors Post-docs that include teaching Correcting an error in the Cannon citation The importance of the SETI program Don’t provide ammunition for creationists Concerning ammunition for creationists - I Concerning ammunition for creationists - II How to confront “scientific creationism” Concerning the status of women in astronomy Author’s response to Michael Merrifield Virtual observatories or rather digital research facilities? The status of women in astronomy Concerning virtual observatories A modest request concerning online catalogs A good time to be gay in astronomy? Establishing a Schommer Education Fund A model for research grants in retirement A request for sky spectra at interesting times

L. Thompson

10/98 10/98 10/98 12/98 8/99 10/99 10/99 12/99 3/01 3/01 3/01

J C E H J J J J K K H

6/01 6/01 6/01 8/01 3/02 8/02 12/02

K H H D I F M

6/03

N

10/03 10/03

J J

A problem with the proposed change in the coordinated universal time Concerning global climate change ” ” ”

10/03 10/03

J L

” ” ” The IAU is undemocratic

3/04

IAU undemocratic?

3/04 6/04 6/04 10/04

L L M N L J

10/04

F

Were you a participant in Project Moonwatch The AAS should weigh in on the leap seconds issue Democracy in the IAU Opposing the AAS endorsement of the AGU statement A response to the reorganization of NASA

R. Ellis B. Haisch D. Haarsma J. van Gorkom T. Wabbel A. Melott P. Noerdlinger L. Golub W. Bridgman M. Merrifield M. Urry A. Heck E. Griffin E. Griffin St. Shawl R. Danner E. Olszewski Br. Partridge T. Slanger & D. Huestis R. Seaman & St. Allen J. Felton D. Finley & M. Claussen E. Zweibel G. Kaplan & 9 others R. Ekers & O. Engvold P. McCray R. Mansfield C. Scarfe H. Greyber D. Smith

SPACE LAW

JULIAN HERMIDA

Dalhousie University Halifax, Nova Scotia Canada B3H 4P9 [email protected]

Abstract. This chapter examines the salient characteristics of Space Law. It analyzes the origins and evolution of Space Law, its main international principles, and some current topics of interest to the scientific community: the delimitation of airspace and outer space, intellectual property, and criminal responsibility.

1. Introduction This chapter1 analyzes the most relevant aspects of Space Law. It is divided in three substantive parts. The first one traces the origins and evolution of Space Law with the view to introducing and contextualizing the development of Space Law. The second part examines the most important – international – principles applicable to all space activities. The third part addresses some current topics of Space Law, which are of special interest to the scientific community. First, it deals with the debate about the delimitation of airspace and outer, which is of enormous significance as both spaces are governed by different regimes. Although the decision on the boundaries lies with international political bodies, input from the scientific community is essential. Second, it analyzes intellectual property issues, i.e., the legal regime that governs inventions made by scientists in connection with space activities, particularly in the US and European countries. Finally, the last part of the third chapter is devoted to criminal responsibility that may arise from human presence in outer space. Due to the isolation conditions and the hostile outer space environment, it is expected that there will be a high 1

Sh.S. Muleiro contributed the sections on “Delimitation of Outer Space” (Sect. 4.1) and “Intellectual Property” (Sect. 4.2).


192

JULIAN HERMIDA

rate of criminal and deviant conflicts in any long-term human endeavour in outer space. 2. Evolution of Space Law 2.1. INTERNATIONAL SPACE LAW

The first phase of Space Law, whose starting point was the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, is characterized by an emphasis on topics and issues of international law2 Strongly influenced by the political context of the cold war, International Space Law – created through the search for the minimum consensus between the then world superpowers – concentrated mainly on the regulation of the exploration of outer space for peaceful purposes3 Thus, military and humanitarian issues became the almost exclusive concerns of this field4 . The United Nations played an essential role in the development of Space Law during this first stage. In 1958 the UN General Assembly created the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space (COPUOS), where International Space Law would be discussed and codified5 . COPUOS was divided into two subcommittees: the Legal Subcommittee and the Scientific and Technical Subcommittee. However, since COPUOS consisted mostly of members from capitalist countries, only after a few years of lengthy negotiations between the Soviet Union and the United States that led to an increase of socialist states from 18 to 28 did COPUOS actually start to function6 . The United States was of the view that COPUOS decisions should be taken by a simple majority and then they should be sent to the General Assembly for approval. The Soviet Union was against this procedure, since the United States and its allies outnumbered the socialist states7 . Thus, COPUOS adopted the consensus procedure for decision making. Consensus in COPUOS is conceived as the search for the common ground in a debate by means of a scientific discussion of the problem until an agreement is 2 M.A. Ferrer (h), “Espacio Aéreo y Espacio Superior” (C´ ordoba: Direcci´ on General de Publicaciones, 1971), p. 396. 3 I. Vlasic, “A Survey of the Space Law Treaties and Principles Developed through the United Nations” (1995) 38 IISL, p. 324. 4 The first works on Outer Space Law date from the beginning of this century. These first analyses belong to E. Laude (1910) and Vl. Mandl (1932). The most complete and consistent works appeared in the 1950s. Among others, the following must be highlighted: A.G. Haley, E. Pépin, I.H.Ph. Diederiks-Verschoor (then de Rode-Verschoor), and A.A. Cocca. See “Commercial Space” supra note 7, P. 13. 5 N.M. Matte, “Space Policy and Programmes Today and Tomorrow” (Montréal: McGill University, 1980) p. 21. 6 Ibid. p. 21. 7 Ibid. p. 21.

SPACE LAW

193

reached. Consensus means the acceptance of the discussed option in all its scopes, which implies a common feeling by those that choose it8 . Through this procedure, COPUOS produced the five international space treaties9 : (i) Treaty on Principles Governing the Activities of States in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space, Including the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (1967)10 ; (ii) Agreement on the Rescue of Astronauts, the Return of Astronauts and the Return of Objects Launched into Outer Space (1968)11 ; (iii) Convention on International Liability for Damage Caused by Space Objects (1972)12 ; (iv) Convention on Registration of Objects Launched into Outer Space (1975)13 ; and (v) Agreement Governing the Activities of States on the Moon and Other Celestial Bodies (1979). In the first two decades of work devoted to the creation of Space Law, the United Nations achieved important results, providing a fairly general international framework for the activities in outer space. Except for the Moon Agreement, all space law treaties have been widely ratified by the international community14 . 8 A.A. Cocca, “Desarrollo Progresivo del Derecho Internacional” (Buenos Aires: Consejo de Estudios Internacionales Avanzados, 1991) p. 47. 9 The consensus procedure was abandoned when COPUOS dealt with the declaration on the “Principles Governing the Use by States of Artificial Earth Satellites for International Direct Broadcasting Television.” Then COPUOS returned to the consensus procedure for the adoption of the three following declarations: “Principles Relating to Remote Sensing of the Earth from Space” (1986), “Principles Relevant to the Use of Nuclear Power in Outer Space” (1992), and “Declaration on International Cooperation in the Exploration and Use of Outer Space for the Benefit and in the Interests of All States, Taking into Account the Needs of Developing Countries” (1996). 10 27 January 1967, 610 UNTS 205, 18 UST 2410, TIAS No 6347, 6 ILM 386 [hereinafter the “Outer Space Treaty”]. 11 22 April 1968, 672 UNTS 119, 19 UST 7570, TIAS No 6599, 7 ILM 151 [hereinafter the “Rescue and Return Agreement”]. 12 29 March 1972, 961 UNTS 187, 24 UST 2389, TIAS No 7762 [hereinafter the “Liability Convention”]. 13 14 January 1975, 1023 UNTS 15, 28 UST 695, TIAS No 8480 [hereinafter the “Registration Convention”]. 14 As of 1 January 2003, the Outer Space Treaty has been ratified by 98 States and signed by 27 others; the Rescue and Return Agreement has been ratified by 88 States and signed by 25 others. One international intergovernmental organization has declared its acceptance. The Liability Convention has been ratified by 82 States and signed by 25 others. Two international intergovernmental organizations have declared their acceptance. The Registration Convention has been ratified by 44 States and signed by 4 others and two international intergovernmental organizations have declared their acceptance. The Moon Agreement has only been ratified by 10 States and signed by 5 others http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/FAQ/splawfaq.htm#index accessed May 20, 2003.

194

JULIAN HERMIDA

2.2. ORGANIZATIONAL SPACE LAW

During this stage, the focus of Space Law shifted from international law to the institutional aspects of the main intergovernmental organizations and to the domestic law of the United States15 . During this stage, known as Organizational Space Law16 , specialized authors devoted mainly, among other aspects, to the analysis of the legal framework of intergovernmental institutions as well as to United States domestic law17 . During this period, United States domestic rules basically referred to authorizations to carry out space activities, liability issues and the use of space facilities, among other matters18 . The law of intergovernmental organizations dealt mainly with the rights and obligations of the members of the organizations and with the regulation of the relationship between the organization and other entities. 2.3. COMMERCIAL SPACE LAW

In the 1980’s Space Law began to focus on the regulation of commercial space endeavors from a business law perspective, stressing on the evolutionary, mixed and multidimensional aspects of commercial space activities19 . As a response to the increasing commercial exploitation of outer space by US and European private entities, several States enacted specific domestic legislation to regulate the new space business ventures20 . These developments have widely attracted the attention of authors and policy makers around the world, and the enactment of domestic space legislation aimed at regulating space activities of private entities – which many countries are in the process of adopting – constitutes the latest stage in the evolution of Space Law21 . 15 V. Kayser, “Legal Aspects of Private Launch Services in the United States” (LL.M. Thesis, McGill University, 1991) [unpublished], at 136 [hereinafter “Private Launch”]. 16 J. Hermida, “Commercial Space Law: International, National and Contractual Aspects” (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Depalma, 1997) p. 16. 17 N.C. Goldman, “American Space Law: International and Domestic” (Ames: Iowa State University Press, 1988). 18 Laws and regulations dealing with satellite telecommunications services were nonetheless quite developed. The approach followed by the United States in this field was to declare the Communications Act of 1934 applicable to space telecommunications. After this declaration made by the FCC in 1970 many specific satellite telecommunications regulations were adopted. 19 ´ M. Couston, “Droit Spatial Economique” (Paris: SIDES, 1994) p. xxvii. 20 J. Hermida, “Legal Basis for a National Space Legislation” (Dordrecht, Boston, and London: Kluwer Academic Publishers, 2004) p. xxi. 21 F.G. von der Dunk, “Private Enterprise and Public Interest in the European ’Spacescape’ Towards Harmonized National Space Legislation for Private Space Activities in Europe” (Leiden, IIASL, 1999) p. 1.

SPACE LAW

195

3. Main Principles All space activities must comply with the following international principles. In other words, any space activity that does not conform to these principles will be considered illegal. 3.1. FREEDOM OF EXPLORATION AND USE

According to article II second paragraph of the Space Treaty, Outer Space has been declared free for exploration and use by all States, without discrimination of any kind. However, the freedom principle has a clearly defined purpose in the Space Treaty and, therefore, it may not be used as a justification for arbitrary or illegal activities22 . 3.2. COMMON INTEREST

During the negotiation of the Space Treaty, it was feared that the principle of freedom of Outer Space exploration would lead to a situation of monopoly in favor of the United States and the Soviet Union, which were then the only space powers with capacity and means to explore the Outer Space. That fear decreased with the adoption of consensus on the common interest clause, which determines that the exploration and use of outer space, must be carried out for the benefit and in the interests of all countries, irrespective of their degree of economic or scientific development, and must be the province of all mankind. According to Tatsuzawa, “the common interest principle forms a counterpart to the principle of freedom of Outer Space, and imposes reasonable restrictions on the latter so as to avoid the abuse of rights. It sets a general goal from which the States must not deviate in their space activities”23 . 3.3. NON-APPROPRIATION

Article II of the Space Treaty embodies the non-appropriation principle, which establishes that “outer space, including the moon and other celestial bodies, is not subject to national appropriation by claim of sovereignty, by means of use or occupation, or by any other means.” This principle is highly relevant for commercial space activities, since it precludes the possibility of appropriation of Outer Space and celestial bodies by means of private property. This fact does not imply the non-existence of private property in 22

G.P. Zhukov & Y.M. Kolossov, “International Space Law” (New York: Praeger, 1984) p. 42. 23 K. Tatsuzawa, “The Regulation of Commercial Space Activities by the NonGovernmental Entities in Space Law” (1998) 31 IISL p. 343.

196

JULIAN HERMIDA

Outer Space. On the contrary, in accordance with article VIII of the Space Treaty, the ownership of space objects, even those built in outer space, does not change while such objects are in outer space. Thus, for example, a launched vehicle owned by a private space launch carrier launched into outer space pursuant to the international provisions in force will still be owned by that carrier and that carrier’s rights will be recognized by all the states and non-governmental entities. Additionally, the principle of non-appropriation is not absolute and it does not imply the disregard of certain rights on some areas of outer space, e.g., the right to use a specific orbital position (as long as the rules of International Law are observed), the right to use a specific area where a space station is built, or the space vehicle’s right to its trajectory24 , among others. The legitimate exercise of these rights of use implies the recognition of a sort of de facto ownership, which does not seem to contradict the true spirit of the non-appropriation principle, which actually aims at avoiding sovereignty claims by states in outer space and celestial bodies25 . 3.4. PEACEFUL ACTIVITIES. APPLICATION OF INTERNATIONAL LAW

The Space Treaty prescribes that only the moon and other celestial bodies must be used exclusively for peaceful purposes, where the establishment of military bases, installations and fortifications, the testing of any type of weapons and the conduct of military maneuvers on celestial bodies are strictly forbidden. Thus, the Treaty does not require that activities carried out elsewhere in outer space be exclusively peaceful. The Space Treaty merely states that the activities must be carried on pursuant to international law and in the interest of maintaining international peace and security. 3.5. INTERNATIONAL RESPONSIBILITY AND LIABILITY

Responsibility and liability issues play an important role in any space activities. Even if there has never been a successful third party claim for damages resulting from American and European operations, the potentiality of the success of any such claim presents all participants involved in the space launch, and not only the carriers, with considerably high risks. Article VI of the Space Treaty attributes international responsibility to states for national activities in outer space carried on by governmental agencies or by non-governmental entities, assuring that national activities are carried out in conformity with the provisions set forth in the Space 24 25

M.A. Ferrer (h), “El Derecho a la Trayectoria”, (1997) 13 IISL p. 160. L. Peyrefitte, “Droit de l’Espace” (Paris: Précis Dalloz, 1993) p. 50.

SPACE LAW

197

Treaty. This represents a deviation from general international law, for normally states are not responsible and/or liable at international level for the acts of its private citizens26 . Additionally, article VII of the Space Treaty prescribes that each state that launches or procures the launching of an object into outer space and each state Party from whose territory or facility an object is launched, is internationally liable for damage to another State, its individuals and companies by that object in airspace or in outer space. The Liability Convention elaborates on these principles and adopted an absolute liability standard, i.e., objective liability, where the victim does not have to prove the defendant’s fault, without any monetary limits, for damages caused by its space object on the surface of the earth or to an aircraft in flight. Additionally, for damages which take place elsewhere than on the surface of the earth by (i) a space object of a launching State, and (ii) persons or property on board such space object, the Convention adopted a subjective standard, where evidence of negligence is required (article III). As in the case of objective liability, article III claims are not subject to any monetary limitations. The Liability Convention also prescribes that there is joint and several liability for damages caused when a space object is jointly launched by two or more states. In this case, the launching state which has paid compensation for damage is entitled to claim the proportional corresponding amounts to other participants in the joint launching. Thus, all launching states are equally liable for compensation unless they reach an agreement for a different division of liability27 . The Convention also establishes joint and several liability for damage caused to third parties. In this regard, it prescribes that in the event of damage caused elsewhere than on the surface of the earth to a space object of one launching State or to persons or property on board such a space object by space objects of two other launching States, these two States become jointly and severally liable with respect to damage caused to said third State. According to the general provisions of the Convention if the damage has been caused to the third State on the surface of the earth or to aircraft in flight, their liability to the third State is absolute, whereas if the damage has been caused elsewhere their liability will be based on the fault of either of the first two States or on the fault of persons for whom either is responsible. In all these cases the burden of compensation for the damage has to be apportioned between the first two States in accordance with the extent to which they were at fault; if this may 26

I. Brownlie, “Principles of Public International Law”, 2d ed. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1973) p. 421. 27 B.A. Hurwitz, ”State Liability for Outer Space Activities” (Dordrecht: Martinus Nijhoff, 1992) p. 39.

198

JULIAN HERMIDA

not be established, then the burden of compensation has to be apportioned equally between them. The core of the Liability Convention is the full compensation standard imposed on the launching state, which has to restore the victim to the condition which would have existed if the damage had not occurred28 . 3.6. AUTHORIZATION AND CONTINUING SUPERVISION

The Space Treaty provides that the activities of non-governmental entities in outer space will require authorization and continuing supervision by the appropriate state. The Space Treaty does not determine the way in which the authorization must be granted. Therefore, every state is free to implement the system of permits for space activities. This principle is of central importance as it requires every state to authorize the activities of their private companies. In other words, any private firm and other non governmental institutions, including universities and research centers that project to carry out activities in outer space must first seek state authorization, and these activities will then be subject to state supervision. 3.7. JURISDICTION AND CONTROL OVER SPACE OBJECTS

Article VIII provides that a state on whose registry an object launched into outer space is carried shall retain jurisdiction and control29 . In other words, the legislation of the state of registry, including criminal, labor and any other kind of laws, may be applied to space objects and its personnel while in outer space. This jurisdiction may be partially waived in favor of another state by means of agreements on this matter. For instance, the State of Registry may agree on the enforcement of the legislation – or a legislative area – of another state participating in a space activity. Thus, for example, US law could apply to civil matters while Russian law could apply to criminal issues on a specific Russian or US object if so agreed by the US and Russia. 3.8. REGISTRATION OF SPACE OBJECTS

Based on article VIII of the Space Treaty, the Registration Convention prescribes that when a space object is launched into outer space, the launching 28 Proposals have been made to advance from the system of absolute liability towards total responsibility. While the former leads to the mere compensation of damages, the latter implies a double penalty, both economic and juridical, because of the deep ethical contents it entails. [A.A. Cocca, “From Full Compensation to Total Responsibility”, (1983) 26 IISL p. 157]. 29 This principle has been adopted as a consequence of the abolition of the sovereignty in space. A.A. Cocca, “Prospective Space Law” (1998) 26 J.Sp.L. p. 52.

SPACE LAW

199

State must register the space object in a national registry30 . The registration of the object in the national registry of the launching state transforms such state in the state of registry, and thus, absent an agreement to the contrary, the laws of such state will be applicable to both the space object and the personnel on board. 3.9. INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION

Cooperation was conceived as a means toward perfecting peace and it soon became a necessity for implementing expensive space projects. This principle has been considered to be a legal obligation, which conditions the lawfulness of every space activity31 . However, as stated by Mikldy international cooperation is simply an obligatio de contrahendo and not an unconditional duty. Furthermore, no state may impose upon another one the subject and the terms of cooperation in one or another area and cooperation may only be the result of bilateral and multilateral agreements32 . 3.10. AVOIDANCE OF HARMFUL CONTAMINATION

According to article IX, all space activities have to be conducted so as to avoid harmful contamination and also adverse changes in the environment of the Earth resulting from the introduction of extraterrestrial matter. Provisions contained in this principle are rather vague. For example, reference to harmful contamination may appear to suggest that non harmful contamination is allowed. Similarly, reference to the phrase adverse changes is not altogether clear. This principle refers only to harmful contamination of the Earth. Thus, it seems to permit contamination of Outer Space. 3.11. FREE EXCHANGE OF INFORMATION

The Space Treaty mandates states to inform the Secretary General of the United Nations as well as the public, and the international scientific community, to the greatest extent feasible and practicable, of the nature, conduct, locations and results of space activities. With respect to commercial activities carried out by private sector companies, the obligation of these companies is just to inform the state which has jurisdiction on them, which in turn has to inform the Secretary General and the general community. Similarly, scientists must inform their state according to their respective 30

Registration Convention, Article II 2.1. A.A. Cocca, “Preface”, in J. Hermida, “Commercial Space Law: International, National and Contractual Aspects” (Buenos Aires: Ediciones Depalma, 1997). 32 M. Mikl´ ody, “International Cooperation. A Legal Obligation in the Law of Outer Space?” (1983) 26 IISL p. 231. 31

200

JULIAN HERMIDA

laws, if any, of the nature and extent of their space activities so that the state can in turn inform the UN Secretary General. 3.12. FREE ACCESS

Article XII, together with articles I and II, assures free access to all celestial bodies and provides means for assuring each party that the other parties are living up to the provisions of the treaty. It requires that all stations, installations, equipment and space vehicles will be open to representatives of all other state parties to the Space Treaty on the basis of reciprocity. 4. Legal Issues Relevant to the Scientific Community 4.1. DELIMITATION OF OUTER SPACE.

Currently, there is no agreed precise legal, technical or political definition of either the boundaries separating airspace from outer space or of the term outer space itself33 . Many definitions have been made to clarify the expressions outer space and airspace, but none of them can express the entire concept of both terms. Legal differences are significant. Over the airspace, states have complete and exclusive sovereignty, whereas in outer space there is no sovereignty. There are two main points of view on the delimitation issue. One approach argues for the need to delimit the boundaries of outer space and airspace. Several theories within this approach presuppose that a demarcation line must be drawn somewhere in space. They differ, however, on where to place that line34 . Other schools argue that there is no need to arrive at a fixed boundary, especially since no conflict has yet arisen35 . Making rigid boundaries may even be counterproductive as scientific progress may render obsolete any present delimitation36 . This approach was adopted in the Report of the Legal Subcommittee of the Committee on the Peaceful Uses of Outer Space on its 39th Session, held in Vienna from 27 March to 6 April 2000. It held that “it was premature to develop any definition or delimitation of outer space when the lack of such a definition or delimitation had 33 The Minister of State, FCO, Hansard, h.c., Vol. 546. W.A. 66, July 23, 1993, from de Never ending dispute: “Legal theories on the spatial demarcation boundary plane between airspace and outer space” Gbenga Oduntan, Hertfordshire Law Journal 1(2) (2003) 64-68. 34 http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1973/MayJun/barrett.html (R.J. Barrett). 35 http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1973/MayJun/barrett.html. (R.J. Barrett). 36 S.H. Lay & H.J. Taubenfeld, “The Law Relating to Activities of Man in Space” (1970).

SPACE LAW

201

not caused any problems in conducting space activities and that an arbitrary and artificial definition or delimitation of outer space would render international law less useful and effective”37 . The following are the main schools of thought that advocate for the need of determining the boundaries from outer space and airspace. 4.1.1. Uniform Criteria The applicable legal regime should be uniform for both air flights and space activities38 . As consequence, aircraft flights and space flights should be governed by the same principles and rules. 4.1.2. The Functional Approach Functional theorists reject any scientific or legal approach to settle a demarcation and hold that the legal regime should depend on the function of the object rather than on its location. Thus, for example, a space vehicle should always be governed by space laws whereas an aircraft should always be subject to air laws. 4.1.3. The Aerodynamic Lift Theory The von Karman Line theory indicates that the limit between airspace and outer space should be drawn at the theoretical limit of aerodynamic flight. According to definitions by the Fderation Aronautique Internationale (FAI), “the Karman or Krmn line lies at a height of 100 km above Earth’s surface (i.e., in technical terms 100 km above man sea level). Around this altitude the Earth’s atmosphere becomes negligible for aeronautic purposes, and there is an abrupt increase in atmospheric temperature and interaction with solar radiation”39 . 4.1.4. The Effective Control Theory A state should apply its exclusive sovereignty to the highest point in space where it can effectively apply its authority40 . While this theory has some appeal, it tends to reinforce the hegemony of most powerful spacefarers. 4.1.5. The Lowest Point of Orbital Flight Theory Sovereignty should extend to the lowest perigee of an orbiting satellite, which ranges between 70 km to 160 km. COPUOS, which has been debating the delimitation of outer space and airspace for decades, has not been able to adopt any conclusive position. 37

http://www.oosa.unvienna.org/Reports/LGLROOE.pdf http://perseus.herts.ac.uk/uhinfo/library/i89918 3.pdf, at 70. 39 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edge of space 40 http://www.airpower.maxwell.af.mil/airchronicles/aureview/1973/MayJun/barrett.html 38

202

JULIAN HERMIDA

If and when a limit between airspace and outer space is established, it will have security, traffic and political implications. Input from the scientific community becomes essential. 4.2. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

The commercial success of any space endeavor largely depends on the possibility of obtaining adequate protection of the inventions and creations that result from space projects. Without this legal protection, there is no possibility of providing satisfactory compensation to inventors. The international space legal framework defers the protection of intellectual property to states. The United States follows the so called first to invent approach, i.e., patents are granted to the one that can prove that was the first to develop the invention, even if someone else has filed for a patent before the inventor. In the US Congress approved a bill specifically regulating inventions made in outer space41 . This law extends the territorial scope of US Patent Law to outer space, so any invention made in outer space on a space object under the jurisdiction or control of the United States may be patented in the United States. Whenever an invention is made in the performance of a work under a contract with NASA, the invention becomes the property of the United States, if the person who made the invention was employed by NASA, or42 if the invention is related to the contract with NASA. While there may be exceptions especially contemplated in the contract, all patents that have significant utility in the conduct of aerospace activities must generally be issued to NASA43 . Unlike the United States, Europe does not have a specific regime for intellectual property created in outer space. European states follow the first to file system, i.e., a patent is granted to the person that first files for a patent. Also, patents are regulated in each country. Most inventions in Europe are created in connection with programs carried out under the auspices of the European Space Agency. Generally, an invention made by a contractor as a result of work carried out under an ESA contract is the property of that contractor, which is protected by a patent44 . However, the European Space Agency and its member states 41

305 USC § 105. 305 USC § A (1). 43 A. Piera, “Intellectual Property in Space Activities. An Analysis of the United States Patent Regime”, Air and Space Law 29 (2004) 42. 44 Article 37.1 of the General Clauses and Conditions for European Space Agency Contracts. 42

SPACE LAW

203

are entitled to a free of charge, non-exclusive irrevocable license to use the invention45 . 4.3. CRIMINALITY IN SPACE

As corroborated by recent experiences of human responses to isolation conditions in outer space, it is expected that there will be a high rate of criminal and deviant conflicts in any long-term human endeavor in outer space46 . 4.3.1. Criminal jurisdiction In the International Space Station agreement, states opted for opted for a criminal jurisdiction system where the right to exercise criminal jurisdiction lies, in principle, in the state of nationality of the perpetrator47 . This reflects a very traditional approach to criminal jurisdiction under international law48 . Thus, a partner state may exercise criminal jurisdiction over personnel who are their own nationals irrespective of where the perpetrator is located, i.e., in its own module or in another partner’s module49 . So, for example, if a Canadian astronaut commits a crime in a US module, Canada and not the United States will have primary criminal jurisdiction over the Canadian astronaut. The IGA has also adopted – albeit in a limited fashion – the doctrine of passive personality50 . Thus, in case of misconduct on orbit that: (a) affects the life or safety of a national of another Partner State or (b) occurs in or on or causes damage to the flight element of another Partner State, the Partner State whose national is the alleged perpetrator has the primordial – but not entirely exclusive-right to exercise criminal jurisdiction51 . If it decides to exercise it, then it preempts the right of the affected state. However, the affected state may concur in the exercise of such jurisdiction52 . The only possibility that the affected state has to exercise criminal jurisdiction in an exclusive way is if the state of nationality fails to provide assurances 45 Article 37.2 of the General Clauses and Conditions for European Space Agency Contracts http://www.spaceflight.esa.int/users/file.cfm?filename=fac-iss-la-ipoe 46 For an analysis of criminological and criminal justice issues in outer space, see J. Hermida, “ Space Risks” (PhD Thesis, Catholic University of Cordoba, Doctorate of Laws Thesis 2000) [unpublished]. 47 St.J. Ratner, “Establishing the Extraterrestrial: Criminal Jurisdiction and the International Space Station” (1999) 22 BC Int’l & Comp. L. Rev. 323. 48 C.T. Oliver et al., “The International Legal System 133-35” (4th ed., 1995) p. 165. 49 IGA, Article 22.1. 50 A.J. Young, “Law and Policy in the Space Stations’ Era 152-53” (1989). 51 IGA, Article 22.2. 52 The IGA is silent as to how to implement in practice this concurrent jurisdiction. St.J. Ratner, “Establishing the Extraterrestrial: Criminal Jurisdiction and the International Space Station” (1999) 22 BC Int’l & Comp. L. Rev. 341.

204

JULIAN HERMIDA

that it will submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution53 . This clearly shows a profound mistrust of each state visa-vis its other partner states, for all partners have orchestrated a system ` where each state’s own nationals will – in principle – be tried by its own prosecutors, before its own courts and according to its won substantive and procedural law. The current International Space Station’s approach, which places a strong emphasis on the state of nationality’s power to try its own national offenders, coupled with severe disciplinary norms – which even include the use of physical force – is thoroughly inadequate to satisfactorily resolve the variety of behavioral problems which will be created. The criminology literature has been prolifically probing the causes of why people commit crimes. None of the existing criminological theories can explain criminality in outer space. Until criminology comes up with a thorough understanding of the causes of crime in outer space, the criminal justice system will lack the necessary theoretical tools to design a criminal law and criminal justice approach to effectively deal with these conflicts. 5. Conclusions Space Law has a long history regulating activities in outer space. International principles constitute the fundamental regulatory scenario which all space activities must follow. Created during the Cold War, these principles are rather general and focus mainly on security and humanitarian issues. National and commercial space laws have been gradually growing in the last few years. However, issues of central importance for the scientific community, such as the delimitation of outer space and airspace, the protection of intellectual property arising from inventions related to space projects, and criminal responsibility derived from human presence in outer space are still either poorly regulated or not regulated at all.

53

IGA, Article 22.2(2).

SEARCH STRATEGIES FOR EXOPLANETS

RAFAEL REBOLO

Instituto de Astrof´ısica de Canarias & Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cient´ıficas C/ V´ıa L´ actea s/n E-38200 La Laguna, Tenerife, Spain [email protected]

Abstract. Since 1995, more than 140 planets around solar-type stars have been discovered. The great success of the first decade of observational research in exoplanets, where both the number of planets detected and the number of research groups in the field have grown in parallel, will be followed by a golden age in exoplanet discovery. In the next 15 years, current and planned searches with observatories in space and on the ground will increase this number by at least two orders of magnitude unveiling the distribution of masses, periods and eccentricities of exoplanetary systems. We will possibly see the discovery of Earth-like planets around other stars and major efforts will be conducted to detect signatures of biological activity in their spectra.

1. Introduction The search for planets around stars similar to the Sun succeeded in 1995 with the discovery of a giant planet orbiting the star 51 Peg (Mayor & Queloz 1995). The surprising finding of a planet with a mass similar to Jupiter in a very small orbit, about one hundred times smaller than Jupiter’s orbit, was closely followed by similar findings around other solar-type stars (Marcy & Butler 1996; Butler & Marcy 1996). The success of radial-velocity surveys has led to the discovery of more than 140 planets and several planetary systems during the past 10 years. At least 7% of solar-type stars appear to have giant planets orbiting at less than 5 AU. A complete updated list can be found for instance in “The Extrasolar Planets Encyclopaedia”1 1

http://www.obspm.fr/encycl/encycl.html


206

RAFAEL REBOLO

maintained by J. Schneider. The masses of these planets lie between several times the mass of Jupiter and ∼20 times the mass of the Earth. In the mass range 10 to 0.5 MJup , there is a clear trend to a higher frequency of low-mass planets. At even lower masses, this trend may still exist, but the limited sensitivity of the current surveys prevent a definitive conclusion. Remarkably, any effort to search for lower-mass planets has found success and the more recent findings of Neptune-mass exoplanets (Santos et al. 2004; McArthur et al. 2004; Butler et al. 2004) only encourage the search for terrestrial exoplanets. The discovery of an Earth-like planet will be a major breakthrough in astronomy with important scientific and philosophical consequences. It is fortunate that we are living an epoch where answers to major questions, as the existence of exoplanets able to host life, can be addressed on a technical basis. The techniques required to detect such planets are being intensively explored and will possibly provide the first detections during the next decade. Perryman’s (2000) comprehensive paper on extrasolar planets lists the various detection methods used or planned for planet searches. We review hereafter the main strategy searches currently followed for exoplanet detection and the plans to extend these searches to detect and characterise Earth-like planets in the next decade. This is not intended to be an exhaustive, neither exclusive, compilation of planetary searches, as we mainly consider efforts aimed at detecting planets around solar-type stars. Searches around pulsars which have led to the detection of Earthmass bodies (Wolszczan & Frail 1992) will not be discussed here. We essentially adopt here the classification scheme by Perryman (2000) and group search strategies according to the detection of: – a. the effect caused by the planet on the dynamics of the star (orbital motion around the barycenter of the system); – b. the direct effect of the planet on the propagation of stellar light (dimming, reflection, lensing) and – c. the direct radiation of the planet itself. 2. Searches Based on Dynamical Perturbations Current strategies to search for the dynamical perturbations induced by planets are focused on the measurement of periodic variations either in the radial velocity of stars (Doppler measurements) or in the position of stars with respect to a reference background (astrometric measurements). The extremely high accuracy of pulsar timing also allows searches of planets around neutron stars via determination of periodic changes in pulse arrival times due to orbital motion.

EXOPLANET SEARCHES

207

2.1. RADIAL-VELOCITY MEASUREMENTS

The most successful technique in terms of number of planets detected is based on the measurement of periodic Doppler shift variations in the lineof-sight velocity of the central star, as determined from displacements in frequency of spectral lines. Detection of Jupiter-mass companions to nearby solar-type stars with precise radial-velocity measurements is now routine and Doppler surveys are moving toward lower velocity amplitudes. This technique has proven a powerful tool for finding planets down to masses 15-20 times the mass of the Earth with orbital periods of less than a week. There are currently over 15 active groups in the world carrying out radial-velocity searches at a precision level

Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy 6 (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy

Asteroseismology (Astronomy and Astrophysics Library)

Multiwavelength Cosmology (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

Sirius Matters (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

The Sun and Space Weather (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

High Time Resolution Astrophysics (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

The Sun from Space, Second Edition (Astronomy and Astrophysics Library)

Relativistic Astrophysics and Cosmology: A Primer (Astronomy and Astrophysics Library)

Handbook of space astronomy and astrophysics

Handbook of space astronomy and astrophysics

Water in the Universe (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

Polarization in Spectral Lines (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

Nonequilibrium Phenomena in Plasmas (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

Polarization in Spectral Lines (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

The Interstellar Medium (Astronomy and Astrophysics Library)

Dayside and Polar Cap Aurora (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

Spacecraft Attitude Determination and Control (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

Solar Neutrons and Related Phenomena (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

Astronomy and Astrophysics)

U.S. Astronomy and Astrophysics

Astrophysics: A New Approach (Astronomy and Astrophysics Library)

Information Handling in Astronomy - Historical Vistas (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

Astrophysics: A New Approach, Second Edition (Astronomy and Astrophysics Library)

Tools of Radio Astronomy, Fifth Edition (Astronomy and Astrophysics Library)

Astronomy-inspired Atomic and Molecular Physics (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

Nonlinear Cosmic Ray Diffusion Theories (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

Astrobiology: Future Perspectives (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

Solar System Astrophysics: Background Science and the Inner Solar System (Astronomy and Astrophysics Library)

Dusty and Self-Gravitational Plasmas in Space (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy 6 (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)

Organizations and Strategies in Astronomy (Astrophysics and Space Science Library)