The two-body problem
NRAO refers to its data management hurdle as an “infoglut.” Astronomers are not alone in dealing with this issue. But for ALMA, the difficulty is particularly acute right now, as the systems come together for handling the data and massaging it into something that scientists can use. They call it “the pipeline,” and Rémy Indebetouw is one of the people trying to get it into shape.
Indebetouw is one of a number of scientists who hold joint appointments at UVA’s astronomy department and at NRAO. That makes for a full plate. He explains that his NRAO work involves a lot of ALMA user support, “primarily in helping people who have been approved get their observations scheduled, and, when they get the data, I reduce it.” Reducing data is the process of streamlining the raw information from the telescope and making it usable and presentable. He worked on the software package that does this data reduction. He also teaches in the astronomy department, and performs his own research (into star formation in the Milky Way and nearby galaxies). To date he has participated in five ALMA science proposals as principal investigator, over a dozen more as a co-investigator.
Indebetouw manages as he speaks to be both genial and serious, languid yet focused. The laid-back attitude has got to be either a gift from the gods or a chosen, practical life strategy, because without it the workload might be crushing. He is married to fellow astronomer Kelsey Johnson, who herself holds joint NRAO and astronomy department appointments. The challenge of nurturing a two-career relationship is common enough in the sciences at large that there is a name for it. They call it “the two-body problem,” a wonkish in-joke that riffs on the equations for calculating the gravitational effect of one object on another. They began factoring a solution when they met in 1995 at what Johnson refers to as “nerd camp,” the highly competitive Research Experience for Undergraduates. They have been a couple ever since.
With twin careers, three young children, and choice seats beneath the ALMA big top, it’s easy to see why students seek out their advice about solving the two-body problem. The formula they’ve arrived at seems to be to apply yourself to your work to the exclusion of almost everything else, but when it comes to the major milestones of marriage and family, damn the academic torpedoes and blast full speed ahead. They had their first baby while doing post-docs and applying for jobs.
Johnson’s research focuses on extreme environments for star formation, but she finds that administrative work, including her service as chair of the ALMA International Science Advisory Committee, is becoming more consuming: “I spend nearly all my time working on committees, advising students, writing proposals so that my students can get funding and data, and almost no time actively doing science. But for me what really matters is teaching and public outreach. That’s where we make the biggest impact. Especially in astronomy, which is a gateway science for a lot of people. That’s where we can have a tangible positive effect on the world.”
It’s hard in the presence of an accomplished couple hitting their prime not to feel something of the generational tides in play around a big science project like ALMA. Al Wooten has been working on it for 30 years, since it was just a faint glimmer on the horizon. Paul Vanden Bout, though he stays active and engaged and attended the inauguration in Chile, gave NRAO and ALMA the last 25 years of his career and stepped down as Director before ground was broken on the telescope he helped create. And they are not alone in ALMA’s orbit. Johnson and Indebetouw are just reaching perihelion—the point of closest approach. They are entering mid-career as one of the most high profile power couples in astronomy. Despite the stress of juggling work and family and trying not to compromise, or maybe because of it, they get to play and do their life-defining work with the instrument that their predecessors have created for them.
Johnson shakes her head ruefully when she thinks about it. “It’s not fair, is it?” Indebetouw starts to formulate something. Stops. The silence of the room holds for a moment. Then signal beats out noise: “I hope in 10 years I’ll be working on starting to shepherd the next large facility into being.”
Same as it ever was
Even with only 19 of the ALMA antennas operating, the observation last year of the star HD 142527 produced indications of something that had been suspected but never seen before: streamers of gas, as long as the radius of our solar system, cascading inward, drawn probably by the gravity of two giant planets, and continuing to feed the growth of the star. Astronomers are, for the time being, relying on artists’ renderings to picture the process. But as ALMA becomes fully operational, its vision and image output will become more and more acute, and direct images of systems like HD 142527 will become possible.
With all of the ALMA receivers delivered, the Front End Integration bays at the Technology Center stand empty now. But in the Correlator room, another, smaller computing project is in development. Joe Greenberg and his colleagues are working on an add-on to the Correlator that will allow ALMA to be joined to other radio antennas around the world to produce a virtual telescope the diameter of our planet. The goal is to be able to image whole suns being ripped apart by unfathomable forces and falling into the event horizon of the black hole at the center of our galaxy.
For all of its sophistication and power, for all the mind-expanding results it is just beginning to produce, ALMA really can do no more or less than any tool ever has. It is a supreme accomplishment to be sure, but it is also just another lever we use to pry open the lid and look a bit deeper inside things.
The real miracle of ALMA, of all science, is what happens between our ears. The technological legerdemain, the monkey inventiveness, the ability to experiment, it all ultimately only benefits us if it helps build more powerful explanations of things in the world. From the time our ancestors first noticed that a hollowed out piece of wood could float, or that when the sun rose at a particular notch in the mountains the grain was about to sprout, that’s all we’ve ever done. Same as it ever was. No matter how spectacular ALMA is, it’s the intellectual edifice we’ve built one mosaic piece after another that is our greatest achievement as a species. Everyone working on ALMA knows this.
Greatest achievements are always best taken with a little shot of humility. Subra Suresh, the outgoing head of the National Science Foundation, acknowledged this in his speech at the ALMA inauguration. “At times like these, we do well to remember that we put a man on the moon before we put wheels on the suitcase,” he said.
It was the only good-laugh line of the day, and it got a huge one. But it was also a caution to keep in mind that while we need to be advancing the horizon of pure knowledge, we’ve also got to keep applying our knowledge to the nettlesome facts and cloying practicalities of human existence. Those two needs, in fact, go hand in hand. A note Suresh struck beautifully in his summation when he said: “Good science anywhere feeds innovation everywhere.”