CLEAR SKIES AHEAD FOR ASTRONOMERS

When the average American thinks of space exploration, thoughts of NASA and Elon Musk likely jump to mind, but that’s all about to change: Chile is the next big superstar for the future of the world’s astronomical studies.

That’s the word from Pat Hanrahan, director of the Mt. Hood Planetarium, who visited the South American country in January as part of the 2018 Astronomy in Chile Educator Ambassadors Program. He was one of four U.S. astronomers selected to visit Chile and see the key astronomy sites being built that are funded by North America.

“You need dark skies, you need to have elevation, and you also need to have flat enough ground to build something at high elevation and you need to have a stable government, and [Chile] seems to have all those things,” explained Hanrahan.

Over the next couple of years, roughly 70 percent of the world’s astronomy resources will be focused on Chile, in the Atacama Desert. Hanrahan said the area is so high that there’s obviously a lot less air (oxygen), and the dry desert environment keeps any moisture (rainfall) to just millimeters each year.

“Turns out the (astronomical) signals they’re trying to detect are killed by moisture in the air, so if you don’t have much air, you don’t have much moisture, you can detect these signals very, very well,” he said.

Chile currently has upwards of 66 radio telescope dishes, and numerous telescopes and observatories are under construction. These new facilities, along with new technology, have led to spectacular discoveries that may not have happened elsewhere.

“They actually found a galaxy that appears to be empty of something called ‘dark matter’ and I didn’t expect they’d ever find anything like that. And so for me, that’s probably one of the most amazing discoveries that’s been made in the past year,” said Hanrahan.

Astronomers are now also able to witness new stars forming, he said.

“You can see a new star forming from a dust cloud. The dust is contracted into a disk, and you can see the star in the middle of that disk forming, and you can see ringlets around it where the planets that are forming have cleared out a ring inside the dust.”

Those who attend the upcoming MHCC Planetarium show, “Big Astronomy from Chile,” will get to kick back and look at the night sky projection when they arrive, and even watch mini-movies that have been put together, where the sky moves around to music.

Mostly, though, Hanrahan will share more information on the studies going on in Chile, and show lots of photos and diagrams of the types of technology being used to study space. He’ll also be going more in-depth on recent discoveries, and viewers will see photos of them, as well as those of other sites from Chile.

“Big Astronomy from Chile” is running on Tuesday, June 5, and Friday, June 8 at 6 p.m. and 7:15 p.m. both days. Admission is $5 for adults, and $2 for MHCC students and folks 17 and under.

Hanrahan will also be a featured speaker at the Oregon Star Party this summer in the Ochoco National Forest, 45 miles east of Prineville, running Aug. 7-12, which coincides with the Perseid meteor showers, as well as a new moon, which means guaranteed dark skies and good viewing.