Destinations with views that are out of this world
Visiting astronomy observatories in Chile, Los Angeles and Hawaii sparks wonder
After 30 hours of bumping along on planes and buses, at long last I stood in the darkness and gazed upon an immense night sky. My long journey had seemingly brought me to the shoreline of interstellar space rather than the high-altitude plateau that is Chile’s Atacama Desert.
It was the first night of a month-long journey to visit astronomy observatories in Chile, Los Angeles and Hawaii. Whether designed for professional use or for the general public, observatories nurture humanity’s explorations of the cosmos.
They spark wonder and discovery, but even e was before seeing I outer set foot space inside in the a spellbind-first one, ing new way.
It was early May, autumn in the Southern Hemisphere, and our group had spent nearly five hours staring at the night sky. We had met in San Pedro de Atacama, a small town 7,900 feet above sea level near Chile’s border with Bolivia. Judging by the legions of backpacks, hostels and prominent Wi-Fi signs, it sits firmly astride the trekking circuit of Latin America.
Activities abound: There are mountain bikes to rent, salt flats to visit and pink flamingos to photograph.
However, I was there to stargaze. The Atacama, a plateau about the size of A Pennsylvania, is the driest desert in the world.
The combination of its aridity, high altitude and low population results in exceptional seeing, an astronomy term for the quality of observing conditions. San Pedro de Atacama offered several night sky tours, but this area isn’t just for amateurs. Chile —a primarily in the Ata- cama — contains 70 per cent of the vatories, world’s professional I if you count astronomy the massive obser- new ones under construction like the Giant Magellan Telescope.
While in San Pedro de Atacama, I also wanted to visit the Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array, known as ALMA.
Built by an international consortium of countries, ALMA is “the most complex astronomical observatory ever built on Earth,” according to its U.S. partner, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory.
Reservations are tough to get, although its isolation helps the last-minute traveller. Every Saturday and Sunday, a bus leaves San Pedro de Atacama and takes tourists to visit ALMA’s Operations Support Facility in the empty desert a halfhour away.
Although free tickets are snapped up months in advance, those without reservations show up at the bus stop anyway and often are rewarded.
The actual array of ALMA’s 66 movable antennas sat far above us — out of sight — on a plateau at 16,000 feet (although you can see them through a webcam). No one lives up there, and those working in that environment must use supplemental oxygen. We toured the base camp, the control centre and Otto, one of two German-built antenna movers.
After visiting ALMA, I flew across the Atacama to its southern edge to get a sense of astronomy’s audacious future goals. The Giant Magellan Telescope is one of two mega observatories under construction in Chile, along with the European-led Extremely Large Telescope. These two observatories belong to a new generation of observatories that will be able to analyze potential life-bearing planets light-years away. The GMT, as it is commonly called, promises to capture images 10 times sharper than those of the Hubble Space Telescope.
For the moment, though, it is nothing more than a construction project on a mountaintop, as well as several enormous mirrors in varying stages of production at the University of Arizona’s mirror lab. “First light,” as astronomers call the moment when an observatory begins operations, is scheduled for 2024.
The GMT is being built by a consortium of universities in the United States and other countries at a mountaintop site called Las Campanas. Owned by the Carnegie Institution, the site currently hosts eight other telescopes as well as staff hous- ing that evokes a Swiss chalet.
When it begins operations, the GMT will welcome visitors but how exactly is still unclear, given the site’s remoteness. Plus, nighttime observation requires dim ground conditions — a hazard to driving — while daytime is the period when all the observatory staff sleep. Still, if ALMA is any guide, visits to the GMT will be popular. So many people want to visit ALMA that the external relations staff stay onsite for weeks at a time, doing shift work. Stargazing in the Northern Hemisphere Weeks later, my wife and I travelled to Los Angeles and Hawaii to take in astronomy experiences aimed at the general public, the entry point for budding astronomers.
In Los Angeles, I visited one of the most prominent observato- ries in the world — the Griffith Observatory, built in 1935. Frequently spotted in movies and TV shows, and especially known for its starring role in La La Land, the Griffith Observatory welcomes ever-increasing numbers of visitors to its iconic building overlooking the city’s skyline.
Like many other science facilities, access is free. It was a reminder that outside of the cost of getting there, science tourism is generally light on the wallet. And if travelling far distances is an issue, many universities in the United States have observatories on campus that offer public viewing hours. I wondered whether the crowds at the Griffith Observatory were due mainly to its Hollywood celebrity. However, other astronomy sites were just as crowded.
We experienced this the fol- lowing day, when we flew to the island of Hawaii to visit Mauna Kea, one of the world’s top venues for astronomy.
The Maunakea Visitor Information Station, located about two-thirds up the side of the dormant volcano, is base camp for the professional observatories on the summit. It is also a centre for public astronomy in Hawaii.
Four evenings a week, a mix of employees and volunteers trundle out telescopes for everyone to see. People drive up hours before, because the parking lot almost always runs out of room well before the 7 p.m. viewing start time. Hundreds of us stood patiently in long lines, clutched cups of hot chocolate, waiting for glimpses of Jupiter and the North Star. Meanwhile, people hiked up a nearby hill to catch the last rays of the setting sun.