STAIRWAY TO THE STARS The Story of the World's Largest Observatory OTHER RECOMMENDED BOOKS BY BARRY PARKER THE VINDICATION OF THE BIG BANG Breakthroughs and Barriers COSMIC TIME TRAVEL A Scientific Odyssey COLLIDING GALAXIES The Universe in Turmoil INVISIBLE MATTER AND THE FATE OF THE UNIVERSE CREATION The Story of the Origin and Evolution of the Universe SEARCH FOR A SUPERTHEORY From Atoms to Superstrings EINSTEIN'SDREAM The Search for a Unified Theory of the Universe STAIRWAY TO THE STARS The Story of the World's Largest Observatory Barry Parker Drawings by Lori Scoffield PERSEUS PUBLISHING Cambridge, Massachusetts Library of Congress Cataloging-in-publication Data Parker, Barry R. Stairway to the stars • the story of the world's largsst obsarvatory / Barry Parker ; drawings by Lori Scoffield. p. cm. Includes bibliographica1 references and index. ISBN 0-306-44763-0 1. Astronomical observatories—Hawall—Mauna Kea—History. 2. Parker, Barry R, 3, Astronomers—United States—Biography. I. Title. QB82.U62M387 1994 522' . 19969' 1—dc2Q 94-21016 CIP CBSW Publishing books are available at special discounts for bulk purchases in the U.S. by corporations, institutions, and other organizations. For more information, please contact the Special Markets Department at the Perseus Books Group, 11 Cambridge Center, Cambridge, MA 02142, or call (617} 252-5298. ISBN 0-7382-0578-8 © 1994 Barry Parker Published by Perseus Publishing A Member of the Perseus Books Group 10 9 8 7 6 5 4 All rights reserved No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, microfilming, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the Publisher Printed in the United States of America Preface It is early morning. As I look out the window I see a fresh blanket of snow. The hedge, shrubs, trees, and lawn are all covered. The temperature is 12 degrees below zero. In the east the sun is rising over the distant hills, its rays reflecting from the windows of the houses across the street. It is quiet, with few cars passing this early in the morning. Overhead the sky is blue, fading to white near the horizon, with a light mist obscuring some of the distant objects. As I sip my coffee I think back to the beginning of this book. It is almost exactly a year ago that my wife and I set out for the Big Island of Hawaii. I was on a five-month sabbatical; during this time I would visit the observatories of Mauna Kea and spend a considerable amount of time at the headquarters buildings in Hilo and Waimea. I was also planning to fly to Honolulu to the Institute for Astronomy. The first of the giant Keck telescopes (Keck I) would come on line while I was there, and Keck II was being constructed. I was looking forward eagerly to the trip. This book is a result of that sabbatical. In the first few chapters I cover the history of the observatory—the problems that were encountered and how they were overcome. One of my objects in writing the book is to give the reader a feeling for what astro- nomers do at observatories, so I have included chapters describing my visits to them both during the day and at night. And finally I have selected a number of astronomers and discussed their re- search in considerable detail. These discussions span black holes, V vi PREFACE cosmology, stars, the search for extraterrestrial planets, and the origin of our solar system. It is difficult in a book such as this to avoid technical terms, but I have tried to limit them. For anyone unfamiliar with the few that I have used, I have provided a glossary at the back of the book, I am particularly grateful to the scientists who assisted me. I talked to a large number of astronomers while visiting the ob- servatories and headquarters buildings. In some cases they pro- vided me with reprints and photographs. I would like to express my gratitude to all of them. They are Mitsuo Akiyama, Colin Aspin, C. Berthoud, Ann Boesgaard, Hans Boesgaard, David Boh- lender, Len Cowie, Sandra Faber, Tom Geballe, Peter Gillingham, John Glaspey, Bill Heacox, George Herbig, Esther Hu, Bill Irace, Dave Jewitt, John Kormendy, Alan Kusunoki, Ron Laub, Olivier Le Fevre, Bob McLaren, Terry Mast, Karen Meech, Guy Monnet, Kyoji Nariai, Jerry Nelson, Francois Rigaut, Ian Robson, Michael Rowan-Robinson, Dave Sanders, Barbara Schaefer, Gerald Smith, Malcolm Smith, Walter Steiger, Brent Tully, Richard Wainscoat, and Peter Wizinowich. I would particularly like to thank Kevin Krisciunas for sup- plying me with a considerable amount of historical material, sev- eral photographs, for critically reading several of the early chap- ters, and for acting as a guide to several of the observatories. I would also like to thank Andy Perala for a guided tour of the Keck Observatories and several photographs. Special thanks go to Don and Edith Worsencroft, Jack and Ann Roney, and Virginia Spencer for their hospitality while we were in Hawaii. The line drawings were done by Lori Scoffield. I would like to thank her for an excellent job. I would also like to thank my editor Linda Greenspan Regan and the staff of Plenum for their assistance in bringing this book to its final form. And finally I would like to thank my wife for her support while the book was being written. All photographs are by the author unless otherwise specified. Contents CHAPTER 1 Introduction 1 CHAPTER 2 The Early Years 17 A Promising Beginning 17 Problems 29 The Building of the 88-Inch Telescope 36 CHAPTER 3 Expansion and New Telescopes 39 The Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope 39 The NASA Infrared Telescope 46 The United Kingdom Infrared Telescope 51 Problems Along the Way 56 The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope 58 The Caltech Submillimeter Telescope 62 CHAPTER 4 The Largest Optical Telescope in the World—Keck 67 Early History 68 Stress-Mirror Polishing 74 Passive and Active Systems 77 The Building of a Prototype 81 vii viii CONTENTS Looking for Funding S3 Design of the Telescope 85 CHAPTER 5 The Continuing Story of Keck 89 Building the Dome and Telescope 90 First Light 95 Dedication 99 The Instruments of Keck 105 Keck II and Interferometry 106 Adaptive Optics 220 Projects 222 CHAPTER 6 Visiting the Top of the World 215 First Trip 115 Hale Pohaku 119 Approaching the Summit 124 On the Summit 128 Approaching from Waimea 129 Survey of the Observatories 132 CHAPTER 7 Night at the Observatory 145 CCDs 245 Inside the UKIRT Dome 151 Down in Submillimeter Valley 158 Inside the Canada-France-Hawaii Dome 160 Remote Observing 165 CHAPTER 8 Running the Observatory: The Directors 167 The Institute for Astronomy 168 The Joint Astronomy Centre 172 The Canada-France-Hawaii Corporation 151 Keck 255 CONTENTS ix CHAPTER 9 Monster at the Core 195 John Kormendy 200 Quasars and Black Holes 208 Black Hole in Our Galaxy? 222 CHAPTER 10 Surveying the Universe 221 Brent Tully 224 Continuing Controversy 231 Peculiar Velocities and the Great Attractor 233 Sandra Faber 239 CHAPTER 11 Searching for the Ends of the Universe 245 Specifying Deep Space 247 Surveying Deep Space 248 Markers and Lighthouses 255 Other Surveys 260 CHAPTER 12 Stars and Stellar Debris 263 Early Stellar Astronomy 263 The Life Cycle of a Star 269 Herbig Stars 274 Looking for Lithium 278 CHAPTER 13 Searching for Other Planetary Systems 283 Early Searches 283 Basic Techniques 287 The CFH-DAO Program 289 Dust and Debris 293 TOPS 295 x CONTENTS CHAPTER 14 Searching for the Origin of the Solar System 299 Comets 302 Observing the Kuiper Belt 307 Short- and Long-Period Cornets: How Do They Differ? 311 CHAPTER 15 The Future: Other Telescopes 327 Gemini 317 Project Subaru 322 The Smithsonian Submillimeter Array 326 The Very Long Baseline Array 329 Epilogue 331 Glossary 333 Bibiography 341 Index 345 CHAPTER 1 Introduction Perched on the summit of the highest mountain in the Pacific the Mauna Kea Observatory on the Big Island of Hawaii has a night sky of breathtaking beauty, a sky that gives the best astronomical observing conditions in the world. Not only is the sky dark, the air steady and incredibly transparent, but on the average at least half of the days are clear, with another quarter partially clear. No other observatory in the northern hemisphere approaches this. Mauna Kea is one of two large volcanoes that dominate the Big Island. From the ocean floor it soars 32,000 feet to its summit, 13,796 feet of which is above sea level. It is so high that, even in tropical Hawaii, its top is frequently capped with snow in the winter. Although its neighbor, Mauna Loa, still spews lava down its sides every few years, Mauna Kea is dormant, its last eruption occurring about 3000 years ago. Geographically speaking the Big Island is young, with Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa rising above the ocean less than a million years ago. The entire island is made up of lava that has flown from these volcanoes and others. In all, five volcanoes make up the island; besides Mauna Loa, only one other one—Kilauea—is ac- tive. It is sometimes called the "drive-in volcano" because it is the most accessible volcano in the world, with a road completely around its caldera (crater at the summit). Kilauea last erupted in 1983, and as of 1993 lava was still flowing out of it. The Hawaiian islands were first populated by Polynesians from the south, probably Tahiti.