21 November 2024
The most surprising thing about deep space is its lack of colour. I don’t mean that most of space is black, but that all these nebulae you see online are photoshopped. In reality, to the human eye they are so faint as to almost be greyscale. Some may consider this a sad truth to learn, but it has never diminished my fascination with space. And as someone who has always been a bit of a loner, the isolating vastness of the universe feels quite comforting.
This week marks my seventh stint at the Paranal Observatory in the north of Chile. There are only nine other astronomers here and we have to rotate out every two weeks because the air here is so dry that you get a nosebleed within 24 hours of arrival and your fingers become so dry that touchscreens and trackpads become unusable. It’s a harsh environment but the complete absence of moisture also means the sky is so clear you can see the milky way every night even without looking through the telescopes, and that’s magical.
My project this time is to detect large objects in the Kuiper Belt — the outer region of our solar system where Pluto is — whose trajectory could pose a threat to earth. It’s almost comical how shockingly bad we are at finding asteroids — the majority approaching earth are not detected until they are so close that if they were a problem, we wouldn’t have time to worry about them. Which, I suppose, would be a nice way for it to happen.
One of the other astronomers, Lara, tells me I’m being too cynical and she’s the first person to tell me this that’s made me think she might be right.
22 November 2024
Well, almost on schedule, the nosebleed happened at 5am as I was walking back to the dormitory. I know there’s no way to avoid it, but every time I think if I just walk fast enough, my nose could recover just enough in the damp air in the dormitory. That damp air is from a huge swimming pool in the centre. Nobody ever uses it, apart from the final day of their rotation, when tradition dictates you jump in with all of your clothes. What they don’t tell you is that because the air is still pretty darn dry, the water evaporates so fast you’re shivering by the time you get to your room. But it’s also a nice bonding exercise, though you could argue it’s trauma bonding.
23 November 2024
Lara’s done a double shift, pouring over data during the day time, and asked if I wanted to meet for breakfast/dinner on my way into work. I usually don’t interact too much with the other astronomers — I’m here for a fortnight and there’s too much work to do to much socialising — but there’s something about Lara’s warmth that’s been drawing me in. Besides, all the other people here are men and it would be fun to have a female friend who loves space as much as me as a scientist.
I’ve always preferred chemistry and physics to describe the universe to reading poetry about it, though I confess I did enjoy Alan Bean’s paintings in the years after he returned from the moon.
Lara is here at the observatory to research the rings of Uranus, another one of those space phenomena that’s much more poorly understood than you’d expect. The problem is that there’s no agreed upon explanation for how the rings stay together. Lara says she’s always loved the solving puzzles aspect of astronomy — and just, well, actual puzzles. She has actually brought a few with her; to relax after a long day in the observatory she sits in her room and does a real puzzle!
I’m slightly in awe, I tend to write into my diary and collapse into bed after the end of a shift. The dry air does get to me and the work may be very rewarding, but it is intense.
I hadn’t notice until now how delicate Lara’s fingers are and even in this dry air, they have not cracked. I wonder what they feel like.
24 November 2024
Lara and I met up again for breakfast, which was actual breakfast for both us this time, although it was at 8pm obviously before heading to the observatory. We talked a lot about our early days as astronomers. She was born into a family of artists — her dad’s a musician and her mum’s a jeweller — and they didn’t really understand her passion for physics, but she says they were very supportive. My parents on the other hand were very much scientists: both taught mechanical engineering at MIT, and really I don’t think you could get any nerdier than that. Needless to say, they too were supportive of their only child going into astronomy.
It’s a cliché in our community, but I really did get into astronomy by watching Star Trek with my dad as a child. I probably knew that I could never have these kinds of adventures, but I was a kid and maybe I didn’t actually know that I’d never be on a spaceship thousands of light years away from earth discovering new civilisations. If I’m being entirely honest, I’ve still not entirely accepted the impossibility of that scenario.
For Lara, it was her first love who got her into space. She was really into physics in school but astronomy hadn’t really occurred to her. She used that phrase, “first love” skirting around the gender…
I think for a moment I lost myself looking at how her hand held the spoon. What was she talking about?
26 November 2024
I didn’t have time to write anything in my diary yesterday but there wasn’t much to report. I spent too many hours staring at measurements the night became much too long. I think the only words I exchanged were with Jason when he walked in my office, and it wasn’t much more than a “hi”. When I finally fell into bed I couldn’t sleep. I don’t think I’m ready to admit to myself why.
27 November 2024
Lara asked if I wanted to meet up again. Dinner this time, at about 7am. I think by the time I got to my room, it was about midday.
She has shoulder length, curly, brown hair and a side cut. I’ve always just worn mine straight, and probably slightly too long but to be honest, I didn’t enjoy the hairdresser too much and it’s always felt like I could be doing something better with my time, like honing my programming skills or reading journals.
She has a comfortable, practical sense of style— jeans, and she’s exclusively been wearing t-shirts of punk or rock bands (today, it was a t-shirt with The Clash on it). You can just about see the end of a tattoo near her collar. I asked her what the tattoo was and how big it was, and if the needle was painful, and she just looked at me and said, in her beautiful sing-song voice, “wouldn’t you like to know?”
Then she took off the necklace she was wearing underneath her t-shirt, and showed me the silver disk with the Canis Major constellation. She smiled and said her mum made it for her 18th birthday, explaining how it was a symbol for her love and how she would always be there for Lara, a light in the darkness that comes into everyone’s life eventually. A light like the north star. Lara’s never had the heart to tell them that Sirius isn’t the north star, and really, did it even matter?
Lara’s eyes are like emeralds. Have I written that down yet? I don’t want to forget.
28 November 2024
Lara and I spent half the night together because she couldn’t make sense of some numbers, and truth be told I was stumped as well. She’s going to retake the measurements tomorrow — that’s the joy of astronomy. Sometimes you think you’ve made a great discovery, then it turns out the numbers don’t add up, and you realise something was off somewhere in your initial data collection.
It was very fun pouring over that puzzle together, even though we didn’t technically solve it and now I’m somewhat behind on my own work.
Lara’s eyes sparkle in the greenest green and her face is so soft when she smiles with excitement over a new physics problem. I feel like I’ve written that down already, but I don’t want to forget.
1 December 2024
I’ve been running a fever the past few of days, though it feels like it’s subsiding? Trust my stupid body to get a cold in the middle of the Atacama desert! With all the willpower in the world, I couldn’t drag myself over the observatory to work. Lara and I had originally planned to meet up at twilight to hopefully catch the sun flashing green just as it sets behind the horizon. It’s such a rare phenomenon, I’ve still not seen it in real life. Lara sent me pictures: it was right there! And I missed it!
But I think what I’m even more annoyed by is that I missed the chance to watch a sunset with Lara. I bet twilight in her eyes is celestial.
2 December 2024
I’m almost getting used to the dry air. At some point, you almost forget that it’s not normal to live somewhere so devoid of any moisture that they even have to bring in truck loads of drinking water. When the pandemic hit, some of my non-astronomer friends joked that surely I wished to be in Chile where I would be far enough from civilisation not to be exposed to the virus. I’ll never forget the look on their faces when I explained to them that there is literally nothing out here that would allow us to survive without regular contact with the outside world.
Lara says her last relationship didn’t survive the stress of the pandemic, being locked in a one-bed apartment with her girlfriend (HER GIRLFRIEND) was too much of a strain. She thinks they probably would’ve broken up anyway but the lockdowns both prolonged and destroyed any love that might have once existed between them.
I wanted nothing more than to wipe away the tears running down her cheek. Gently move my thumb over her perfect cheekbones and tell her it’s okay. I didn’t. I fear if I touch her, I may never let go.
3 December 2024
Lara asked if I fancied helping her solve one of her other puzzles. One of the actual puzzles. Of course, I agreed. It was a picturesque little town somewhere in Alsace — colourful houses with wooden beams and red tile roofs in front of a river (Lara said it’s the Colmar canal). It was an absolute pain in the ass to put together but I don’t think I’ve ever had so much fun in my life failing so miserably at a task. We giggled all morning like school girls with secrets that feel like the most important knowledge in the world.
A few times our hands brushed against each other.
I was right: her hands are so soft.
I like her smile. I like her laugh. And it felt good to see her happy after yesterday’s conversation felt like she finally released years of grief.
4 December 2024
One more day in Chile before I go back to Boston and Lara goes back to London. I haven’t found any asteroids that could pose a threat to earth, which, sure, good news. But I feel like I’ve been hit with one anyway.
I haven’t been able to sleep again. All I can think about is how I’m going to say goodbye to Lara. It’s starting to feel as impossible as captaining a spaceship in deep space.
5 December 2024
Lara says she still doesn’t know how the rings of Uranus are keeping their shape and that she’ll have to come back when she can get another grant. The scientist in me thinks, obviously you can’t solve a mystery that’s confounded astronomers for decades in a fortnight, but my heart says if Lara can’t figure it out then nobody can.
I’m still not looking forward to jumping in the pool later today but knowing that Lara will be jumping in, too, makes me think it could be fun? I’d never been one to sit down and do a puzzle either…
5 December 2024 (addendum)
As we all lined up by the pool getting ready to jump in, Lara walked over to stand next to me. She leaned over, brushed my hair behind my ear — trillions of electrons gently dancing down my spine and outwards over my whole body like fireworks — gently intertwined her fingers with mine — that hand I have imagined holding for an entire lifetime — and whispered “do you still want to find out how big my tattoo is?”
While the description of life at Paranal Observatory — including nosebleeds, dry fingers / unusable trackpads and the swimming pool tradition — really do occur, the story, and the characters, are entirely made up.
Header image: Milky Way over the Paranal Observatory. CC-BY 4.0. European Southern Observatory /H.H. Heyer. Source
