Lowell Observatory changes the world’s perception of the universe
When the world is plagued by the great ponderables of the universe, Lowell Observatory is there to provide the answers to the questions that have stymied humanity since the beginning of time.
From the top of a mountain that looms over the small city of Flagstaff, the astronomy haven of the city has been changing the understanding of the universe since the 1890s. Well before discovering Pluto in 1930, it’s greatest claim to fame, Lowell astronomer V.M. Slipher made a discovery that literally changed the world’s understanding of the mechanics of the universe.
“V.M. Slipher in the early 1900s was looking at what was then called the Andromeda Nebula,” Lowell curator Samantha Thompson said, “and he was measuring velocities of objects. He found, by looking at the Andromeda Galaxy that it was moving towards us at a speed that was far too fast. He started looking at other galaxies, and they were moving away from us. A thousand kilometers an hour. And the physics just doesn’t allow for that to be gravitationally bound. And really what he was discovering was the first evidence of the expansion of the universe.”
Edwin Hubble gets credit for the expansion theory, but it was all based on Slipher’s work at Lowell.
Percival Lowell, founder of the observatory, was not only influential in science, but also science fiction.
In the late 19th century the view of Mars was a planet riddled with canals. Clearly if life on a desert planet is to survive, water would be needed. It was therefore conjectured that Martians built the canals to distribute water from the poles to the rest of the planet. Lowell believed this to be true, and would give lectures about life on Mars.
In his 1908 book Mars as The Abode of Life, Lowell acknowledged that Mars was now a desert planet, and explained how current life adapted to this: “This would lead to the easier spreading over it of some dominant creature, — especially were this being of an advanced order of intellect, — able to rise above its bodily limitations to amelioration of the conditions through exercise of mind.”
Lowell’s lectures of life on Mars inspired sci-fi authors like Edgar Rice Burroughs, and put the notion in the head of H.G. Wells to write The War of the Worlds.
A laymen’s misconception of astronomy may be that certain discoveries happen at certain moments.
“The hardest part about recent discoveries is what you quantify as a discovery,“ Communications/Marketing Associate Joshua Bangle said. “Every time they look through a telescope, it’s safe to say they’re discovering something. Was it what they were specifically looking for? Probably not.”
Lowell’s international impact has not only been in the universe, but in the skies of the earth itself.
Big city lights pollute the night sky with so much glare billowing high into the sky that it makes it impossible to get a good view of the universe through a telescope. It was Lowell and the Naval observatories in the ‘80s that helped create the International Dark-Sky Association.
It’s because of this organization that you are able to look up and see a night sky filled with stars even in the most well lit sections of Flagstaff. This is due to hoods over street lights, canopies over gas stations, and other simple fixes that keep the light in the city and not glow above the cityscape where it is not needed.
The perpetually repeated question from some is, with all the problems on earth, why are we looking into space? “It explains why we’re here,” Thompson said, ”how everything else came into being. And I just think it’s cool! It also feeds our innate need as humans to explore. For a while it was exploring earth. ‘Well, good, what’s next?’ So we look up. We want to know more, and by looking up, it’s so vast, and it’s never ending. We’ll never be able to check off astronomy. We’ll never be like, ‘ok, done!”
