As you’ve probably heard, last Sunday, July 19, amateur Australian Astronomer Anthony Wesley
discovered a dark spot on Jupiter. After alerting the professional astronomers, it turned out the spot, about the size of the Pacific Ocean, likely resulted from a recent and unknown impact. You can see the mark in the image from Don Parker at right.
Most of us probably had similar reactions, something along the lines of, “What a neat discovery! This is why astronomy’s great, that dedicated amateurs can still make significant contributions.” Much of the public, though, reacted otherwise. Here’s a rough list of the kinds of comments I saw on various news web sites and blogs:
- Celebrations of amateur astronomers and astronomy in general
- Calls to action to better fund NASA, to better map out the solar system
- Jokes (of varying quality) of the “chicken little,” “North Korea’s latest missile,” “[telescope] size doesn’t matter” varieties
- Displays of astronomical ignorance, such as thinking a 14.5-inch telescope is just over a foot long
- Surprise that no one saw the impact coming, as they had for Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, which struck Jupiter almost exactly 15 years prior
- Conspiracy theories trotted out (alien cover-ups or Moon-landings-were-faked)
- Questions about NASA’s efficacy: If an amateur could outdo them, why are we paying the agency billions?
- Questions of NASA’s entire purpose: “Only useless things are done in NASA research.”
Only the last two really worry me. Judging by the former, people apparently assume either NASA should keep constant surveillance on Jupiter or that it does and just missed this spot. Wesley himself quickly defended the agency, writing in an e-mail it was “perfectly reasonable” for NASA to accept and even rely on amateur astronomers for help. That way, it can focus on targets out of the amateurs’ reach. “You get the best of both worlds that way,” he said. Apparently, we need to get this message out to the general public more.
The last point, the idea that none of this matters, is far more upsetting. The quote about NASA’s uselessness came from a commenter on the New York Times web site identifying himself as Santosh Kalwar, who wondered why the story received so much coverage. It’s ironic, because I’d thought of astronomy as the science best able to engage with the public, with its gee-whiz images and out-of-this-world ideas. I guess this just proves that even the most public-friendly science still has a way to go toward universal acceptance.
Let me know if I missed some other category of responses, or if I’ve misjudged the worry-level for some of these. Have you read or heard any other surprising or humorous reactions?
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