Astronomy – October 2019

16 ASTRONOMY • OCTOBER 2019

STRANGE UNIVERSE

Science journalists are confronting an odd

new trustworthiness challenge. I’m not too

worried about how it affects this magazine’s

readers, who are mostly sky-savvy. But as astronomy

editor of The Old Farmer’s Almanac for

more t ha n a qu a r ter- c ent u r y, I’ve watched

with growing discomfort as its million

general readers acquired strange, new

notions about the cosmos.

One example: the Super Moon busi-

ness. Astronomers have a perfectly fine

word for when the Moon comes close:

perigee. For centuries, the published lunar

perigee date mostly elicited yawns. But

when the term Super Moon caught on a

few years ago and the mass media ran

headlines like, “Don’t miss tonight’s Super

Moon!,” confusion arose.

The main problem is that a perigee Full

Moon looks just like any other Full Moon,

whereas “super” suggests something very

special is afoot. Photographers soon

obliged by publishing photoshopped

images of an unnaturally huge Moon,

and the highway to hype was now open to traffic.

If we want astronomy to catch on and grow, we do

want to stir up excitement. But we also mustn’t oversell

cele st ia l e vent s t hat we k now w i l l fa l l fa r shor t of what ’s

promoted. It raises a simple issue: Does a term like

Super Moon do more harm or more good?

When I took over the Almanac’s pages long ago, I

decided never to list penumbral lunar eclipses or minor

meteor showers happening near Full Moon. Yet this

past April, Earth and Sky — which I normally consider

an excellent radio show — urged listeners to go out to

watch a skimpy Lyrid meteor shower during a very

bright Moon. I knew observers would be lucky to catch

one or two meteors even if they stared for half an hour.

Such overselling is exactly the kind of thing that turns

people off from astronomy.

Another concern is how pop culture perception often

gets set in stone. For example, until the 1950s hit “Rock

Around the Clock,” the public had correctly pronounced

Comet P1 “HAL-ee’s comet.” But Bill Haley and His

Comets established a pronunciation — HAY-lee — that

has become permanent even though it’s wrong.

Another example: If you ask people the first words

spoken from the Moon, they’ll invariably mention Neil

Armstrong’s “one small step” line. Actually, the first

lunar words were, “OK, engine stop.” Soon after came,

“Houston, Tranquillity Base here. The Eagle has landed!”

Only seven hours later did Armstrong say those

famous words. Maybe you’d argue that those alone

shou ld cou nt bec au se he wa s t hen st a nd i ng on t he su r-

face. But that’s not how life works. When you land at

JFK and the plane’s crew says, “Welcome to New York,”

no one thinks, “I’m not in New York because I’m still

on the plane.” Similarly, as soon as the lunar module

landed, the astronauts were on the Moon.

You could argue this either way; my

point is merely that the media-declared

reality became the sole permanent truth.

Commentators had speculated for days

what Armstrong would choose to say when

he stepped out, so only his out-the-hatch

words were catnip to the press corps when

the time came.

Such media-driven astro-facts still hap-

pen. Remember earlier this year when the

press ran the first image of a black hole?

Well, that black circular glob was actually

not the black hole. It was a false-color

depiction of an inky area 100 times larger

than the black hole: the zone where back-

ground radio waves had been disturbed by

the black hole’s presence. But even if incor-

rect, once this “fact” (and others like it)

gains enough repetitions, it becomes our

permanent model of the cosmos — which

is why the vast majority of people think orbiting astro-

nauts can see the Great Wall of China unaided or

believe that births and crimes increase around the time

of the Full Moon. It’s why people think professional

How do we popularize astronomy responsibly?

The media’s

universe

The first image

of a black hole is

conspicuously

missing the black

hole. At the center,

the dark blob is

actually the silhouette

of a region about 100

times larger than

the black hole itself.

EVENT HORIZON TELESCOPE

COLLABORATION

If we want

astronomy to

catch on and

grow, we do

want to stir

up excitement.

But we also

mustn’t oversell

celestial events

that we know

will fall far

short of what’s

BY BOB BERMAN promoted.

Join me and Pulse

of the Planet’s

Jim Metzner

in my podcast,

Astounding Universe,

at http://www.astounding

universe.com