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Stephen James O'Meara - Four Way Interview

Stephen James O’Meara is an award-winning astronomer and author/co-author of more than a dozen books, including the third edition of Oxford’s A Dictionary of Space Exploration (2018). He is a columnist and editor for Astronomy magazine, and former associate editor of GeminiFocus and Sky & Telescope magazines. Asteroid 3637 is named O’Meara in his honour. His latest book is Mars.

Why science?

Science is the key to understanding mysteries. I grew up during the golden age of science fiction and space exploration, when questions initially outweighed answers. 

What comes especially to mind from that era was the first episode of the 1963 TV programme, The Outer Limits, called The Galaxy Being. In it, a peaceful being from the Andromeda Galaxy is accidentally brought to Earth via radio transmission. The military tries to destroy the Being but fails. In response, the Galaxy Being simply tells the earthlings to stop using force, reminding them that there are powers in the Universe beyond anything they know. He then tells them, 'There is much you have to learn. You must explore. You must reach out. Go to your homes. Go and give thought to the mysteries of the Universe.' And that’s what I did, and have done ever since I saw that program at the age of six. The point is we fear what we don’t understand. We need science to alleviate those fears.

Why this book?

Mars has fascinated me since childhood when I began observing it with a 60-mm refractor from my back porch in the 1960s, followed by seeing the 1971 global dust storm at the age of 14 through the 9-inch Alvan Clark refractor at Harvard College Observatory — and  shown to me by the dust storm’s discoverer Dennis Milon. This global storm was the one that largely obscured the planet from the Mariner 9 spacecraft’s view when the craft achieved orbit around Mars on November 14th of that year, just two days before my 15th birthday. Admittedly, I was fascinated by the lore of the Red Planet — as presented by Lowell with his canals, and as depicted in science fiction (especially from the pages of Edgar Rice Burroughs). To me, Mars was a planet alive with mysteries. Little has changed in that respect. Did Mars have water in the past? Does Mars have water today? Did life (microbial) once exist on the Red Planet? Does life still exist on the Red Planet today?  What happened to Mars’s atmosphere? Is Mars habitable? Are humans capable of colonising Mars? No other planet has captured human imagination the way Mars has, and I believe this book is simply a tribute to the ongoing investigation of a planet that was once seen as a mirror of the Earth — and to the imagination of a child who dared to wonder about that world and who continues to do so today.

What’s next?

I’ve always been fascinated with the visible phenomena of the daytime and twilight skies — it’s a part of the visible Universe that largely goes unnoticed. Yet each day offers us the possibility of seeing visual phenomena that capture the ever-changing mood of Earth’s ocean of air and the way light plays with it, or the way the human eye perceives it: the green flash, prismatic ice crystal displays, volcanic twilights, atmospheric glories and so much more. All these phenomena bring us closer to understanding the planet on which we live.  

What’s exciting you at the moment?

You mean aside from from life, nature, and the visible universe? I suppose I’m really looking forward to the upcoming missions to Mars, which should continue to unravel the mysteries surrounding what could potentially be humanity’s next home.

 

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