Lisa Frattare, a member of the Baltimore’s Space Telescope Science Institute, weighs in on religion, women in science, and the next meteor strike on earth.
Of all the beautiful Hubble images that you’ve worked on at STScI, which is your favorite?
Answering that question is like picking a favorite child. But there are two images that do stand out because they were the first images I worked on. One is the Ring Nebula, and the other is the Keyhole Nebula [both in this galaxy, the Milky Way, which is 100,000 light-years in diameter]. I can just look at them all day long.
Does your vantage on the cosmos enhance or detract from any religious faith that you might have?
I’ve never had confusion or conflict with that. I’m comfortable saying that God created the Ring Nebulae and that he did a great job. However, [space images] really don’t inspire me any more than do those of a butterfly. It’s all pretty much par for the course of really cool things out there.
Do women bring any special insights or skill sets to the science that should be encouraged?
I think they do [at least in the image presentation field]. I think there are differences — a bit of a taste difference. But I don’t know if you can characterize it definitely as a male or female quality. I think you need both for a good balance. The problem that I found over the years is that there aren’t many women in astronomy. It’s changed quite a bit, though.
This is the 100th anniversary of the devastating meteor strike in Siberia. Is there any chance of an asteroid or similar strike here in the near future?
At STScI we look at things that are so old and so far away that by the time that they could visit us, they may already have died. A couple of meteors [could hit] here and there, but that won’t do too much damage. There are groups out there looking for such [near-Earth objects], but so far things have been very quiet. We’re hopeful that they’ll stay that way for a long time.
The Hubble telescope is named after one of the formulators of the big-bang theory. Do you subscribe to this holding that the universe started with a huge explosion 13 billion years ago?
I go more with 18 billion years as the universe’s age. There are some satellites that have done some studies, and 18 billion years was one of the last numbers that I saw on this. But, yes, I go with the big bang — although I may say that God created the big bang.
Is Hubble now the most powerful telescope in the world?
It is powerful in the sense that, being above the atmosphere and within its [visible and ultraviolet] wavelength range, [it’s hard to match]. But we do have some ground-based telescopes [like Keck Observatory’s in Hawaii] that are coming close to Hubble’s capability, unless it’s rainy or cloudy or snowy. Hubble just marked its 100,000th orbit in August, and it’s operational 24/7, but blocked by the Earth for a part of its 90-minute orbit.
