TED Community » Lucianne Walkowicz
About Me
Lucianne Walkowicz studies the inscrutable faces of the stars for clues to the inner workings of their hearts. She got her taste for astronomy as an undergrad at Johns Hopkins, testing detectors for the Hubble Space Telescope’s new camera (installed in 2002). She also learned to love the dark stellar denizens of our galaxy, the red dwarfs, which became the topic of her PhD dissertation at University of Washington. Nowadays, she works on NASA’s Kepler mission, studying starspots and the tempestuous tantrums of stellar flares to understand stellar magnetic fields. She is particularly interested in how the high energy radiation from stars influences the habitability of planets around alien suns. Lucianne is also a leader in the Large Synoptic Survey Telescope, a new project that will scan the sky every night for 10 years to create a huge cosmic movie of our Universe. When her head isn’t in the stars, she draws comics, runs long distances, and brings the house down at karaoke.
- Location:
- United States, Brooklyn, NY
- Current organization:
- Princeton University Department of Astrophysical Sciences
- Past organizations:
- UC Berkeley Department of Astronomy, University of Washington Astronomy Department, Johns Hopkins University
- Current role:
- Astronomer
- Gender:
- Female
- Areas of expertise:
- stellar activity, planetary habitability
- I am:
- Artist, Atheist, Brainstormer, Designer, Educator/Teacher, Environmentalist, Explorer, Scientist, World traveler, Writer/Editor
- My website links:
- My main page, Shared blog on human connection, My art site
- Universities:
- Johns Hopkins, University of Washington - Graduate School
- TED conferences attended:
- TED2013, TEDActive 2012, TEDGlobal 2011
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A reply on Talk: Lucianne Walkowicz: Look up for a change
A reply on Talk: Lucianne Walkowicz: Look up for a change
I'll take a crack at both your questions-- 'cause hey, I'm a dark sky lover too! :)
Air pollution is still an issue in that haze can still make the atmosphere more opaque than it would be otherwise, and indeed the fact that our planet has an atmosphere at all causes some distortion (which we see as twinkling of stars-- not a big deal if you're just gazing at the sky with your eyes, but it's an issue for astronomers, which is part of why we put telescopes in space). However, that haze itself is not all that thick-- it's primarily a problem because when there's junk in the air, it's like having many teeny tiny mirrors for light to bounce off of, so if there's a lot of ambient light around it scatters off the haze in all directions, including into your eyes. Because there's so much more of that scattered light than the light actually coming from the stars, it ends up being all we see. Even if there were NO air pollution, though, light pollution would still be a problem, because the light can scatter off of things that are naturally in our atmosphere, like water (which is why the stars seem so clear on cold, dry nights).
On to your question about resources! Way back when, our whole solar system (the sun and all the planets, comets, asteroids, etc. included) formed from the same cloud of gas that collapsed and condensed into the stuff we have today. All bodies in the solar system therefore have the same kinds of things on them, just in varying proportion-- so here on Earth, we have lots of rock and metal and a little bit of the "light" elements like hydrogen and helium, whereas some of the other planets, like Jupiter, have much more light stuff like hydrogen and helium than we do. My point being that the elements we need are everywhere, but actually mining them is really hard. Keep in mind that we have only put human feet onto one other body in the solar system, the moon-- (continued)
A reply on Talk: Lucianne Walkowicz: Look up for a change
A reply on Talk: Lucianne Walkowicz: Look up for a change
A reply on Talk: Lucianne Walkowicz: Look up for a change
A reply on Talk: Lucianne Walkowicz: Look up for a change
Light doesn't really "settle", per se-- light pollution is caused by light scattering in our atmosphere. So if you turn off the light, there's no more light scattering around. It would take a little while for your eyes to adjust to the dark, but then you'd be able to see again. It's funny, although we don't have eyes that are ideal for darkness the way that nocturnal mammals do, we are actually capable of seeing better in darkness than most of us realize-- we just never really have the chance!
A reply on Talk: Lucianne Walkowicz: Look up for a change
I love the idea of a controlled blackout! It would be amazing if there were citywide stargazing nights where everyone took a minute to look up!
A comment on Talk: Lucianne Walkowicz: Look up for a change
If you're looking for more information, there's tons of good resources on the International Dark-Sky Association's website: http://www.darksky.org/
Happy stargazing!
A reply on Talk: Lucianne Walkowicz: Look up for a change
A reply on Talk: Lucianne Walkowicz: Look up for a change
The challenge to preserving the dark night sky isn't a lack of solutions, it's a lack of awareness, so my goal in this talk was to remind people that the night sky has value, that it's something worth preserving. As for many problems, the right solution is likely to be different for different people's needs. Directed lights, as you mention, are one such solution! If you'd like more information, go check out the International Dark Sky Association's website: http://www.darksky.org/
Happy stargazing!