SAO: We are all stardust

The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (aka the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics) in Cambridge, MA is mind-blowing.

Many people think that the Smithsonian is a single museum on the Mall in Washington. Not only is it more than one museum, it's much more complicated: museums, research centers, field sites, many locations. 

Forget the public for a minute. Sadly, SAO is a place that very few SI employees see, and many may not even know that it exists. It's huge, it's super-important in its field, and it's incredible.

We got to go as part of the leadership program that I'm doing this year. Our classmate who works there (yes, he is an astrophysicist) arranged the 1.5 day program. Unbelievable.

First we learned about the history of astronomy and astrophysics at the Smithsonian, which actually does go back nearly to its founding. In fact, the first observatory was behind the Castle, where today the Haupt Gardens are. It moved to Cambridge in the 1950s.

We then met a number of scientists and heard about some of the incredible work underway there. The Greenland Telescope Project. A fabulous exhibit on the evolving universe. The Remote Environmental Monitoring Observatory. The Sub-Millimeter Array. The in-progress Great Magellan Telescope. I knew SAO did space-stuff. I had no idea that they work across the entire spectrum of light, from x-ray to gamma ray. Everything. The trip was huge. It was inspiring. It was mind-blowing. (And hopefully my notes are accurate; I'm not an astrophysicist!)

Then, we hit the stacks.

 In the plate stacks, we got to see original journals of early observations (above), and the first daguerrotypes (silver on copper, below). We saw the earliest known images of a transiting planet against the sun and of Halley's comet. These were the beginnings of what is now the largest collection of astronomical plates in the world.

 This is a 100-year-old photograph. Wow!

 This is the plate scanner. They designed and built this in-house.

Then we switched with the other half of our class and headed to the x-ray telescope section, where they're studying the sun with NASA.

 Amazing images of the sun showing sunspots, radiation bands, plasma and magnetic fields, and other active regions.

 Here, images from the solar dynamics observatory, showing solar temperatures. The sun is oddly cooler at its surface than in its atmosphere. Not that 6000K is cool....

 Just a photo, but this is "my classmate's" telescope in Arizona. (He runs it.) It's the largest gamma ray telescope in the world. Crazy stuff.

Then, before wrapping up for the day, we got another history lesson. The Great Refractor Telescope was the amazement of its day. It pioneered spectroscopy and photography. John Quincy Adams was one of its funders and supporters! This 15" has a clockwork tell with weights. Although very low-tech, it was incredibly precise. It was retired in the 1920s.

After a wonderful dinner, we returned to SAO where a few of the scientists had set up telescopes for us on the roof to do a little stargazing. We saw Mars, the ring nebula (?- maybe it was a galaxy, it's not in my notes), and Saturn. Yes, Saturn! I didn't know that you could see Saturn with the naked eye, if you know what you're looking for. However, with the telescope, you can see Saturn AND its rings. One of my classmates remarked, 'Oh, it looks like a little Saturn!' Because through the telescope, it is small (well, it is very far away) and it really does look like those little stickers of a white orb with rings on a black background. It was remarkable. And then we watched the International Space Station pass by. So cool.


It had been a long day, and we had more to come the next morning. We learned about VERITAS, the high-elecron energy gamma ray telescope, about exoplanets and the Kepler mission, and then toured central engineering, where they build many parts for space missions.

 This is a solar thermal container. I can't remember if it's going to space or not. Below is a spectroscope. This is being built for a mission. 

After lunch it was all about Chandra. SAO actually runs the command center for the Chandra X-Ray Telescope and all its operations. It took 23 years to go from idea to launch, a true testament to vision and determination. It was supposed to last 5 yrs, but after 13, it's still going strong. We talked with the project director, and with its original visionary and the command center director. We stood in the command center and watched it in action.

 Photographs from Chandra are revolutionizing space understanding. The photographs have shown how hot stars form (Orion nebula), supernova explosions (Cassiopeia A), and more. And, they're beautiful.

 Inside the command center for Chandra. Each year, 100 scientists review the proposals for using the telescope, and about 200 proposals are chosen. This is a national project for the international community.

The clocks. The top tells the time. The bottom counts up the days of the mission.

Then we chatted with the director of SAO, which was wonderfully insightful. The people at SAO were so welcoming, so giving of their time. And so incredibly passionate about their jobs! Their enthusiasm was infectious, and there wasn't a single one of us -- mostly non-scientists, too -- who weren't just blown away by what we'd seen, the access we'd been given, and the immensity of what this part of Smithsonian is doing. And once again, we were very aware of how privileged we are in this program to see it. None of us has yet come up with an answer for how we share this experience with our colleagues in our individual units, but I'm going to do a brown bag after my trip to try to start. There has to be a way, because it's needed. The two biggest takeaways we have been discussing are the incredible network and cohort that is being built amongst us 25, and the understanding and awe we're developing of how incredible a place the Smithsonian really is, both its history and its depth and breadth of knowledge and impact. It can be hard to be excited about your job, but I'm realizing that there's no reason that I shouldn't be, every single day.


p.s. We are all stardust, according to the scientists. The oxygen and carbon comes from exploding stars. Cool.