[tt] NYT: Heidi B. Hammel Is an Astronomer Focussed on Neptune and Uranus:Interview

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Heidi B. Hammel Is an Astronomer Focussed on Neptune and Uranus: Interview
New York Times, 8.9.2
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/science/02conv.html

By CLAUDIA DREIFUS

Heidi B. Hammel, 48, an M.I.T.-educated planetary astronomer, has
two professional missions. The first is to learn everything possible
about those icy planets, Neptune and Uranus. The second is to
communicate knowledge about space to ordinary citizens. In 1994,
when the Shoemaker-Levy 9 comet crashed into Jupiter, Dr. Hammel was
the leader of the ground team that analyzed photos of the event from
the Hubble Space Telescope. At the same time, she was the National
Aeronautics and Space Administrations public face, explaining the
science to television audiences worldwide. We spoke at her home in
Ridgefield, Conn., and later by telephone. An edited version of the
conversations follows.

Q. NASA IS PREPARING A MISSION THAT WILL DO ONE LAST REPAIR OF THE
HUBBLE SPACE TELESCOPE. AFTERWARD, IF HUBBLE MALFUNCTIONS, IT WILL
BE ALLOWED TO DIE IN SPACE. DOES THAT TROUBLE YOU?

A. Listen, much as I love Hubble, it's time to build new tools to
see new things.

I've been working with a team planning the next great space
observatory, the James Webb Space Telescope, scheduled for launch in
2013. Webb will be able to probe regions of the cosmos that are
simply not visible to Hubble. It's bigger and it will be tuned to
wavelengths that Hubble can't really see. With Webb, we have the
potential to answer questions about the origins of just about
everything in the universe.

Q. WHY DOES IT HAVE TO BE HUBBLE OR WEBB? WOULDN'T ASTRONOMERS LIKE
TO HAVE BOTH?

A. There isn't enough money to do everything. Hubble's already
lasted much longer than people expected. It wasn't meant to last
forever.

Q. LET'S TALK ABOUT YOUR SCIENCE. DO YOU THINK ASTRONOMERS ARE
SOMETHING LIKE DETECTIVES -- OR INVESTIGATIVE REPORTERS?

A. I think all scientists are like detectives. We are most happy
when we find something that doesn't fit our expectations. My work
often involves analyzing images of the planets taken by Hubble or
made at Earth-based telescopes like the Keck in Hawaii. If I see
something that seems out of sync with what's already known, the
first thing I do is try to find out what's wrong with the data. Once
you've done that, and it still seems wrong, that's when things get
interesting. It means you've found something new to understand. So
you think about it and go for more data and come up with different
models. All real science is like that.

Q. CAN YOU GIVE ME AN EXAMPLE OF THIS FROM YOUR RESEARCH?

A. In 1989, when Voyager 2 flew by Neptune, we saw, for the first
time, a great dark spot in that planet's southern hemisphere. I went
to an Earth-based telescope to look at it in real time. Well, lo and
behold, the dark spot wasn't visible. All I could see were these
bright clouds alongside where the dark spot was supposed to be.

Then in 1993, I looked at Neptune again and all the bright stuff was
now in the northern hemisphere. A year later Hubble sent back
Neptune images, and on those pictures the southern dark spot was
definitely gone. So far, it hasn't come back. We don't know why.

But we did learn something new: that Neptune could change
dramatically in just five years. Till then, it was thought that
Neptune was more static.

Q. YOUR EXPERTISE IS NEPTUNE AND URANUS, GENERALLY THOUGHT TO BE THE
DULLEST PLANETS IN THE SOLAR SYSTEM. WHY DID YOU PICK SUCH
UNCHARISMATIC BODIES TO STUDY?

A. They are not dull. They change a lot. But yes, they are the
Rodney Dangerfield of the solar system -- they don't get respect.
What are they called? "The Icy Giants." Actually, they are great for
a researcher. Because they are located at the outer reaches of the
solar system, they've been less studied than nearer planets. So
whenever I make an observation, anything I find is brand new.

With Uranus, now we're rewriting the textbooks on it. Our recent
observations are so counter to what we thought. We are going through
a different season right now on Uranus, and the whole planet's
atmosphere is turning on, bright clouds, great dark spots, all sorts
of convective activity, which 20 years ago we didn't see. We thought
of Uranus's atmosphere as pretty much dead. And it's not.

Q. THOUGH IT'S NOT YOUR PLANET, HAVE YOU BEEN FOLLOWING THE RECENT
NEWS FROM MARS?

A. Yes. And it's very exciting. The soil is good. There's ice. There
may be places where the ice is more accessible. It means that there
aren't physical reasons to stop us from colonizing that place, if
that's what the fate of humanity is going to be. We are finally
being able to determine what Mars is made of.

I try to stay on top of the Mars findings because at some level the
solar system is unified. Things that happen in one part are relevant
to other parts. The chemistry on the Mars surface informs our
understanding of the chemistry elsewhere in solar system.

Q. ARE WE GETTING ANY CLOSER TO DISCOVERING POSSIBLE LIFE OUTSIDE
THE SOLAR SYSTEM?

A. That's become a fun question now that we're discovering planets
around other stars. I have this widget on my computer that gives me
a running total of how many new extra-solar planets have been found.
It's over 300. Most of them were located in the past few years, and
the pace of discovery is accelerating.

We have to take it one step at a time. The first step is to locate
an Earth-size planet the right distance from its own star for water
to have been in liquid form long enough to allow life, as we know
it, to develop. The next question will be: How can we tell if life
is present, because this body will be too far away to take pictures
of it? We will have to look at the chemistry of its atmosphere and
look for signs that it has been modified by the presence of life.
That will be the clue.

Q. HOW DID YOU DEVELOP YOUR TALENT FOR EXPLAINING SCIENCE IN POPULAR
TERMS?

A. My Uncle Larry was my template. When I was a student, I'd come
home on Thanksgiving weekends, and during breaks in his football
game he'd go, "O.K., Heidi, whatcha workin' on?" I knew I had 30
seconds to tell this guy who worked in a Mack truck factory what I
did. He just wanted the big picture. I'd quickly say, "I'm using big
telescopes to try to find planets and figure out what they're made
of." Every scientist should be able to do that.

Q. YOU DO YOUR ASTRONOMY FROM A HOME OFFICE. HOW DO YOU MANAGE THAT?

A. All you need is computers and high-speed network contact. I've
got one computer that's connected to the Internet and another one
that's walled off from it. One is for data analysis and the other is
for e-mails.

Q. HOW DO YOU KEEP YOUR THREE YOUNG CHILDREN "WALLED OFF" FROM YOUR
WORK?

A. They and my husband have had to learn that when my office door is
closed, it's closed. I've had to learn how to prioritize. You have
to budget time for the inevitable problems that come up with
children. You have to always be ahead of the game. If your proposal
is due at NASA on Friday, it has to be finished on Wednesday
because, on Thursday, it could be fevers and head lice.