The recent discovery of seven Earth-size exoplanets orbiting the dwarf star TRAPPIST-1 has sparked widespread excitement. So far, however, our only glimpse of the new worlds has come in the form of measured dips in the intensity of TRAPPIST-1’s light as the planets pass in front of the star. How do scientists take a fleeting shadow and begin to think about the object that cast it as a physical place?
In Placing Outer Space: An Earthly Ethnography of Other Worlds, Lisa Messeri, an anthropologist at the University of Virginia, sets out to explore how scientists transform data points from telescopes into, as she puts it, “worlds that have human meaning.” In the March issue of Physics Today, reviewer Matthew Shindell calls Placing Outer Space “a welcome addition to the literature on planetary science” that succeeds in “crafting a compelling narrative of discovery.”
Physics Today recently interviewed Messeri about astronomy, anthropology, and how planetary scientists imagine new worlds.
PT: Your first degree was in aerospace engineering from MIT. What led you to make the transition to science studies?
MESSERI: I’ve always loved science. It was where I excelled in primary school, and that interest and aptitude propelled me to surround myself with science and technology by going to MIT. I decided to study engineering. While I loved the equations, math, and physics of the discipline, I was less in love with the actual activities of being an engineer. In my senior year I took an introduction to the history of science, and I was taken aback by the fact that science—this objective thing—had a history. I worked for a couple of years in science policy before going back to graduate school. Before returning to school, I read more about science studies and the history of science and confirmed that I wanted to study it in more depth.
PT: What inspired you to study planetary scientists?
MESSERI: More specifically than being a science nerd growing up, I was an astronomy nerd. I had an inspiring physics teacher, the recently retired Michael “Doc” Lawrence of West Orange High School [in New Jersey], and he was involved in a summer program at Rutgers University that brought in students to learn and do basic research in astrophysics. Effectively, I went to astrophysics summer camp.
Years later, when I was considering a research topic in graduate school, I was advised by many people to pick something that I loved. It had been a few years since astronomy was part of my life, but I happened to have a roommate who also was in graduate school and, as it happened, was studying planetary science. Through her, I learned about the Kuiper belt and the reason for Pluto’s demotion from planet to dwarf planet, which became the subject of my first paper in the field of science studies. My roommate also introduced me to one of her grad school friends who was studying exoplanets with [MIT planetary scientist] Sara Seager. Meeting Seager confirmed that I wanted to track this growing field of exoplanet astronomy and see how it fit in with more traditional planetary science. What, I wondered, was significant about planetary science today?
PT: In the book you argue that planetary scientists engage in something you call place-making. What is place-making, and why do you think it’s so central to what planetary scientists do?
MESSERI: The argument I make is that planetary science today can be understood through the idea of place. In its colloquial sense, place is a geography we connect with and find meaning in. Place-making is the process of creating this meaning, either individually or collectively. How do scientists transform globs of dust, gas, and rock into worlds that have human meaning? I structure each chapter of the book around a different kind of place-making.
For example, in one chapter I specifically chronicle the work of scientists at NASA who map Mars. This group works with data in the form of images and numerical matrices—data that in isolation do not mean much. However, as the scientists stitch together these data and create local and global maps, they are able to offer themselves and others a better sense of Mars as a place. I would ask scientists how these maps changed their understanding of Mars, and they would respond that it gave them insight as to the lay of the land. They could imagine being on the surface, and this in turn made Mars relatable. It shifted from an object to a place.
In focusing on the role of place in the current work of planetary scientists, I am able to articulate how they understand the universe. If planets in our solar system and beyond are places, then the universe is filled with meaningful worlds, some of which might be future destinations. This imagination of place throughout the universe makes work that might be otherwise dismissed as disconnected from earthly problems meaningful. Indeed, what is more earthly and human than looking for these connections beyond our atmosphere?
PT: You visited several sites to conduct the research for Placing Outer Space, including the Mars Desert Research Station in Utah and Seager’s exoplanet research lab at MIT. How did you go about studying, and engaging with, the work done at those research sites?
MESSERI: My research follows the method of anthropology, which offers participant observation as a productive way to understand a community. To be a participant observer is to spend considerable time with a group and, to the extent possible, take on roles within the community.
My participation varied based on where I was. With Seager’s group, because of my engineering background, I was able to do undergraduate-level research alongside her other research assistants. This gave me a reason to be in the lab day after day and also provided hands-on experience working with exoplanet data. I also attended lab meetings and sat in on Seager’s mentorship of graduate students and postdoctoral visitors. I tried to see exoplanet research through her eyes and convey in my book what this is like.
At the Mars Desert Research Station, I lived with scientists in close quarters for two weeks in the Utah desert while we tested drilling equipment that might one day be used on Mars. When I was in situations where the science was above my ability—for example, when I was working with the mapmakers at NASA—I found other ways to make myself useful, or I simply let myself be a fly on the wall. Throughout all of this, I took careful notes of both my observations and experiences, and I interviewed those I worked with closely. These data are woven together and interpreted in order to reflect not only my experience or the experiences of those I observed, but also wider concerns in the planetary science community.
PT: What are you currently reading?
MESSERI: I am reading Countdown City, the second book in Ben Winters’s Last Policeman trilogy. In this series, Winters has created a fascinating world in which an asteroid is on a collision course with Earth. When you know the world is about to end, how do you structure your last months? As you might imagine from this interview, I love world-building―what is it, if not place-making? And because the narrative is focused not on the end of the world but on a procedural crime, the reader experiences this alternative world in a more organic and interesting way.
PT: What is your next project?
MESSERI: I am conducting the research for my second book, which will be about the reemerging virtual reality community. I’m tracking this technology as it is being used and developed in research labs. And I’m examining how the entertainment industry is experimenting with it as a novel platform for storytelling. My interest continues to be on how scientists and engineers make place, and in this case the places being made are virtual worlds.
