On 11 July 2022, the wait was finally over. In a carefully choreographed presentation, the President of the United States himself revealed the first image made by the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST): a ‘deep field’, showing galaxies from the infancy of the universe. The next day, several more images were released, including the stunning ‘Cosmic Cliffs’ in the Carina Nebula (fig. 1, above).[1] Expectations had been high, and they were not disappointed.[2]
Many astronomers were ready to comment on the images, including Ewine van Dishoeck, President of the International Astronomical Union and deeply involved in the JWST. She expressed her excitement, before observing that these images were of course ‘just JPGs’, intended to show the capabilities of the telescope to the wider public. Scientists had to wait a few days more for the actual data that they could work with.[3]
Coming from a scientist who had been working for decades to obtain this data, this comment is understandable. But even if they do not have any direct scientific value, to most viewers the images are much more than ‘just JPGs’. They are representations of a beautiful universe that can be explored by human ingenuity – the very ideal of science, with a touch of cosmic mysticism. The images were received as works of philosophy and art as well as science.
At the same time, the images were released for a very specific political reason: to prove that the long wait and the many cost overruns had been worth it, and to establish the telescope in the public mind as the successor of the hugely popular Hubble Space Telescope. They were not just pictures but political statements.
Finally, the images are not just images because it took many hours of human and computer labor to produce them. They are the result of the painstaking combination of multiple observations, often in different wavelengths, and of carefully manipulating the colors.[4]
I am one of the people who find these pictures beautiful and fascinating. Whatever their scientific value, they are undeniably cool. But as a historian of modern astronomy, I find the context of their production and reception as interesting as the images themselves. One of the many interesting aspects is their authorship: they are often described as being created by instruments. How can machines create such deeply human products, and what does that say about the role of instruments in modern science?
Telescopes as personalities
Historians and sociologists of science often talk about the agency of non-human actors in science.[5] In the history of astronomy, the importance of telescopes is very clear. The entire discipline is organized around large telescopes. The JWST, the most expensive telescope ever, will define a generation of astronomers, just like the Mt. Wilson Telescopes and the Hubble Space Telescope did before.[6] When I was writing the history of astronomy in the Netherlands, the story naturally structured itself around the succession of radio telescopes in Kootwijk (late 1940s), Dwingeloo (1956) and Westerbork (1970).[7]
In the story of astronomy, telescopes are not just actors; they are among the main characters. And if ‘characters’ sounds like ‘personalities’, that is correct. Astronomers used to have an intimate relation with their telescopes. They would spend many hours getting to know all its peculiarities, and sit long nights in cold, solitary darkness observing the sky. Patrick McCray has described how optical astronomers experienced a sense of loss when the increasing use of electronics moved them out of the cold, nightly telescope domes, and into well-lit, heated computer rooms.[8] Astronomy became less Romantic, and the telescopes became less personal.
But modern instruments have acquired a new sort of personality. Some of them have become characters in popular culture (fig. 2). The most prominent examples are Mars rovers such as Spirit and Opportunity, whose cameras are configured to form recognizable ‘faces.’ They have their own Twitter accounts, on which they pose comments, photos and even selfies (fig. 3 and 4).[9] Opportunity – ‘Oppy’ for friends – was mourned by many people when it was officially declared ‘dead’ by NASA in 2019.[10] A ‘heartwarming’ documentary film about this ‘real-life WALL-E’ will be released later this year.[11]
Fig. 3 Opportunity, artist’s impression. Credit: NASA/JPL/Cornell University, 2003.
Less anthropomorphic instruments also have become personalized. The popularity of the Hubble Space Telescope is in part founded on its dramatic beginning. Just like the JWST, the Hubble had been many years delayed and many billions over budget, but when its first images were released in 1990, they were not so impressive: the primary mirror had been polished in slightly the wrong shape (this embarrassing fact explains the added tension surrounding the JWST images: would they get it right this time?). Luckily, the telescope had been designed to be serviced by astronauts, using the Space Shuttle.[12] In 1993, corrective optics were installed, and the telescope has functioned flawlessly ever since. As with Apollo 13, a near-disaster was turned into a heroic tale of human ingenuity.
But its popular status is also based on the beautiful images that were produced by the outreach department of the Space Telescope Science Institute. These images, which involved many hours of human and computer labor to produce, have the status of major works of art as well as symbols of the mysteries of the universe. One of its most iconic images has been dubbed ‘The Pillars of Creation’ (fig. 5). They are available as posters or in high-quality prints. They hang on walls as art, are omnipresent in popular science, and have influenced the art direction of science fiction films.
Fig. 5: The Pillars of Creation, by the Hubble Space Telescope Wide Field and Planetary Camera 2. Credit: NASA, ESA, STScI, J. Hester and P. Scowen (Arizona State University), 1995.
The Hubble Space Telescope has become a celebrity with a public image and a fanbase. So much so, that public pressure forced the US government to reverse its decision to cancel the last service mission in 2004. One more Space Shuttle visited the telescope to prolong the lifetime of the instrument, which at 32 is still functioning.[13]
No wonder that NASA tries to transfer some of this popularity to the JWST (fig. 6). The newer telescope is too far away ever to be visited by human astronauts. This did add to the drama of the launch, however, because any flaw would be irreparable. Besides, its unique configuration made it possible to take a selfie (fig. 7), which was the first indication that the spacecraft was working properly.[14]
Fig. 6: artist’s impression of JWST. Credit: ESA (C. Carreau), 2011.
Fig. 7: First JWST selfie. Credit: NASA, 2022.
Instruments as authors
The public impact of Hubble’s photos surprised even the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), which operates the telescope. Inspired by its success, it started to release new images on a regular basis, and other telescopes have followed.[15] The Hubble Space Telescope has become, if not an artist, at least an author.
Assigning authorship to scientific instruments is not entirely new. Leeuwenhoek and Hooke’s illustrations are rarely printed without mentioning their microscopes. The same goes for a succession of telescopes, from Galileo and Huygens to Herschel. The ‘Leviathan of Parsonstown’, Lord Rosse’s giant telescope, was possibly the first instrument to become more famous than the person who used it.
From the late 19th century onward, new imaging technology gave instruments an increasingly prominent role in creating images: think of spectroscopy, X-ray images, or particle tracks in cloud chambers. But most of those instruments were not unique, and in any case individual ones did not become celebrities outside the immediate circle of their users. That changed with large telescopes, particle accelerators, and especially spacecraft. The Voyager spacecraft explored the outer planets of the solar system all by themselves, sending groundbreaking pictures back to Earth. Ever since, planetary probes up to New Horizons have released beautiful pictures of (dwarf) planets.[16]
These instruments often represent scientific breakthroughs by themselves. The first map of hydrogen distribution in the galaxy, produced by Dutch astronomers in 1954, was as much the product of the Kootwijk radio telescope as of the people who analyzed the data and translating it into a visual image. It represented a major step in the development of radio astronomy, a discipline founded on a new kind of instrument. Similarly, IRAS, the first infrared space telescope, made the first infrared map of the sky in 1983; WMAP, which mapped the cosmic microwave background, produced an iconic images that was presented as a ‘baby picture’ of the universe in 2003 (fig. 8).[17]
Fig. 8: ‘baby picture of the universe’, WMAP’s map of the cosmic background radiation. Credit: NASA / WMAP Science Team, 2003.
In this way, instruments can also be credited with scientific discoveries. The Kepler mission has discovered thousands of exoplanets before its ‘retirement’ in 2018. All these instruments are more famous than the scientists who operate them and analyze the data. The same goes for other ‘big science’ instruments. Who discovered the Higgs boson? The Large Hadron Collider at CERN. The examples can be multiplied.
One reason that instruments have become more famous than scientists in some disciplines is probably that there are fewer instruments, operated by more scientists. As observations were increasingly done by teams rather than individuals, authorship of pictures became less clear.
When I showed my then 3-year old daughter a book about famous scientists (yes I did), it featured Carolyn Porco (fig. 9). I had to confess that I did not know her, even though I knew the images of Saturn that she was known for (fig. 10), and even though history of modern astronomy is my specialty. This could be an example of the well-known effect that efforts of women are often credited to men. But this is a special case, because those images of Saturn are usually credited not to a man but to a spacecraft: the Cassini planetary probe.
Fig. 9: page from Lydia Ortiz, Patrick Rafanan and Emily Kleinman, Little Scientist Board Book Set (New York: Galison, 2018).
Fig.10: Saturn, by the Cassini-Huygens mission (1997-2017). Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech/Space Science Institute, 2017.
A specific case are ‘artist’s impressions’: fictional but scientifically plausible images of phenomena that cannot actually by observed, for example close-ups of binary black hole or neutron star systems.[18] They are also used to create pictures of spacecraft in outer space, beyond the reach of any human camera (cf. fig. 3 and fig. 6; once again, the Hubble Space telescope was an exception, as it could be photographed from visiting space shuttles). The authorship of these ‘impressions’ is often shared by institutions or instruments and individual artists, but sometimes the human artist is not credited at all. The use of artist’s impressions has increased significantly since the discovery of exoplanets, many of which have been detected but of which no actual image exists.
The complexity of authorship was especially highlighted in the case of the first image of a black hole, which was presented in 2019 by the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) (fig. 11). Its publication counted hundreds of authors, but the first author was an organization: the publication should be quoted as ‘The EHT Collaboration et al. 2019’.[19] But when one of the many press releases included a photo of one particular scientist, Katie Bouman, this created a lot of confusion. Was she unduly singled out as the main author? Or, conversely, was this another example of a woman whose scientific work was attributed to others? It led to a fierce controversy on social media, despite her own attempts to credit the entire team.[20]
Just like in the earlier examples I mentioned, the image is usually attributed to an instrument: the Event Horizon Telescope. But that is not actually a telescope: it is a global network of many instruments, institutions and people, who combined their observations to create one image.[21]
Instruments, networks, and teams of people create scientific breakthroughs. In that light, it is surprising that many awards are still given to single individuals. The Nobel Peace Prize has been awarded to organizations such as the Red Cross and even the IPCC; the Physics Prize cannot be awarded to CERN or the Hubble Space Telescope, even if they would deserve it more than any individual.
We can treat the Hubble and James Webb pictures
as political propaganda, as eye candy for public consumption, or as
representations of deep scientific insights in the mysteries of the universe.
Of course, they are all of those, and more. But they also represent our
changing relation to big science instruments. Telescope do not need to be sentient,
or alive, or even to exist (as in the case of the EHT), to be leading actors on
the stage of modern science.
[1] https://www.nasa.gov/webbfirstimages
Fig. 1 / featured image: Cosmic Cliffs, by the Near-Infrared Camera on the James Webb Space Telescope. Credit: NASA, ESA, CSA, STScI, 2022.
[2] I am eagerly awaiting the forthcoming book by Robert W. Smith about the James Webb Space Telescope.
[3] https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2022/07/11/de-eerste-foto-van-james-webb-kijkt-46-miljard-lichtjaar-het-heelal-in-a4136201
[4] https://www.nytimes.com/2022/07/12/science/webb-telescope-pictures.html.
[5] I can recommend Edwin Sayes, ‘Actor–Network Theory and Methodology: Just what does it mean to say that nonhumans have agency?’’, Social Studies of Science 44 (2014) 134-149.
[6] Robert W. Smith, “Engines of discovery: scientific instruments and the history of astronomy and planetary science in the united states in the twentieth century.” Journal for the History of Astronomy 28 (1997) 49-77; cf. https://www.shellsandpebbles.com/2014/01/19/wie-heeft-de-grootste/.
[7] David Baneke, De ontdekkers van de hemel: de Nederlandse sterrenkunde in de twintigste eeuw (Amsterdam: Bert Bakker 2015).
[8] W. Patrick McCray, Giant Telescopes: Astronomical Ambition and the Promise of Technology (Cambridge: Harvard University Press 2004).
[9] For example @NASAOpportunity, @MarsCuriosity, @NASAPersevere.
[10] https://www.nbcnews.com/mach/science/nasa-s-mars-opportunity-rover-declared-dead-after-record-setting-ncna971071.
[11] https://www.thewrap.com/good-night-oppy-documentary-mars-rover-opportunity-amazon/ .
[12] Robert W. Smith, The Space Telescope: a study of NASA, science, technology, and politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1993).
[13] Roger D. Launius and David DeVorkin (eds.), Hubble’s Legacy: reflections by those who dreamed it, built and observed the universe with it (Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press 2014).
[14] https://blogs.nasa.gov/webb/2022/02/11/photons-received-webb-sees-its-first-star-18-times/.
[15] See for example https://www.eso.org/public/images/archive/top100/ .
[16] Peter J Westwick, ‘Visual Imagery in Solar System Exploration‘, in: Roger D. Launius (ed.), Exploring the Solar System (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013).
[17] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/topstory/2003/0206mapresults.html .
[18] Example: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/18/science/cygnus-black-hole-astronomy.html ; https://esahubble.org/images/opo1736a/ credited to NASA, ESA and G. Bacon (STScI).
[19] See https://eventhorizontelescope.org/publications?page=2. Cf mass publications in high energy physics, for example the paper about the discovery of the Higgs boson in 2012 by ‘The ATLAS collaboration’, followed by 12 pages of authors: https://arxiv.org/abs/1207.7214.
[20] https://www.nytimes.com/2019/04/11/science/katie-bouman-black-hole.html; https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2019/04/16/moddergevecht-rondom-de-eerste-foto-van-een-zwart-gat-a3957079.
[21] https://eventhorizontelescope.org. Peter Galison has made a film about this project: https://www.blackholefilm.com/. The Dutch Black Hole Consortium is combining research with outreach projects: https://www.dbhc.nl/.