A conversation with Dr. Jeff Hall, Director

That Frequently Asked Question, ‘Where is God?’, is one of many the staff hears at the Lowell Observatory, especially during astronomy nights.  In this wide-ranging conversation with Lowell’s Director, Dr. Jeff Hall, we talk about everything from that to Venus and Mars, space debris, the connection between music and astronomy, and much, much more.

The Lowell Observatory is a time machine, from its study of the origins of the universe, to a future of life on other planets, to the hurdles we may be putting up with so many spacecraft in the sky.  To learn more and support the observatory, go to Lowell.edu.

And here’s a story about the total solar eclipse discussed in this episode.

Transcript

Intro with music: Welcome to the StoriesHere Podcast

Dr. Jeff Hall, Director, Lowell Observatory:

I had several people come up to me literally in tears. They were so overwhelmed, particularly if they’ve never seen a total eclipse before. It’s a pretty amazing experience. And I think it’s that absolute wonder and awe of what we see when we look into the cosmos.

Wayne Parker, Host, StoriesHere Podcast

That’s Dr. Jeff Hall, director of the Lowell Observatory, talking about the 2017 total solar eclipse which he hosted on a live program with the Science Channel that was viewed by 1.6 million people. That group was gathered in Madras, Oregon on a high school football field and it was reported that after the eclipse passed, they cheered, “Do it again.”

Wayne Parker:

This is Wayne Parker, host of the StoriesHere Podcast. And on that day, I was about 100 miles to the west in Corvallis, Oregon and experienced totality about three minutes before it reached to Jeff’s Science Channel group. So at 10:18 that morning of August 21st, 2017, we stood in a public park and watched as the sun was totally blocked by the moon plunging our world into darkness. Streetlights came on, and it was truly one of those feelings were words can’t do justice.

In addition to things like explaining eclipses on television, as the director of Lowell Observatory, Jeff helps lead a center that Time magazine named one of the world’s 100 most important places. Are you surprised that this place outside Flagstaff, Arizona, is on a list of the world’s most important places along the Great Wall of China and the Roman Colosseum?

There are many more surprises in today’s StoriesHere episode. Thank you for joining us. I’m your host, Wayne Parker, our adviser is museum expert Alice Parman, and original music is by George Davidson.

And did you know the Planet Pluto was discovered at Lowell? More on that to come. It’s also a major education center and has been called America’s observatory. So in their education role, I asked next about any visitor comments that Jeff particularly remembers.

Jeff Hall:

An email will land in my inbox from a mom somewhere and saying literally, you changed my kid’s life because of the experience they had here and the high opening of views they got and the exposure they got to astronomy and science. And knowing that we have positively impacted a young life and maybe inspired a scientist of the next generation, that’s amazingly satisfying and definitely part of why we do what we do.

Wayne Parker:

And how do you look at that bridge between the research and the outreach, because you have a big staff there, you have all these research going on and historically, Lowell is known for real breakthroughs, the discovery of Pluto, really crucial background in understanding the Big Bang. And yet, you do a great conjunction at Christmas last year. There were 75,000 people live paying attention to that and over two million views on YouTube. Jeff, what’s the source of all that interest in astronomy and how do you capitalize on it in that way?

Jeff Hall:

Well, the connection goes all the way back to our founder, Percival Lowell, who believed very firmly that astronomical discovery should not just be confined to academia but should be shared broadly with public. And in fact, the way he often put it was that any member of the public should be able to experience the excitement of discovery in a way that makes them feel like co-discoverers. Like they are discovering this and becoming aware of it in tandem with the researchers. And we carry that through the present day and we don’t …

Jeff Hall:

Sometimes we talk about ourselves as having a dual mission of research and outreach, but I’ve increasingly started to not like that way of putting it because it creates silos. Really what we do is communicate about the nature of the universe and we communicate that to professional audiences, through the peer review journals and scientific conferences and proceedings. We communicate that to the public at a more accessible but no less rigorous incredible level. And it’s all part of unified mission of communicating the excitement and wonder and awe of the universe to everybody.

Jeff Hall:

And it was tremendous to have 75,000 people tuned in for the conjunction. I think the reason that kind of caught lighting in a bottle was the media, of course, hyped it tremendously and a number of the leading media feeds picked up on our stream and advertise it. So we were front and center on some of the most visited websites in the world. And I think that drew a lot of people to our live stream.

Jeff Hall:

One of the other ones that really generated a lot of views, I think we had … Oh, I don’t know, maybe 10,000 tuned in a couple of years ago was the transit of Mercury across the face of the sun. And the comments that came in during that one were saying, “Wow, this is the best stream out there because this is real working, professional astronomers talking about real science and the science of transits and the science of planets and exoplanets.”

Jeff Hall:

So that’s what we try to do is fused the excellence of our research and the results and credibility from a world class group of faculty members and postdocs and students with this communication to the public in an accurate and totally scientifically credible way.

Wayne Parker:

And that’s built on this base of some natural curiosity that many people have about the skies, and about the stars. And especially certain phenomena, in 2017, I was able to be in the path of the total solar eclipse, and it was unlike anything I’d ever experienced. And I couldn’t really describe it. I couldn’t put it into words but it was astonishing, and I think that’s what a lot of people experienced they have when they look into the stars and when they learn things about what’s in the sky, right?

Jeff Hall:

It is hard to describe. We did an event in Madras, Oregon for the 2017 eclipse, right on the center line and we had about 3,500 people at our event. We rented basically a football field at the local high school. And indeed, I and one of our astronomers were narrating the eclipse. The Science Channel actually came up and covered it. And so we were doing a play by play but after totality ended, I was kind of wandering around the in-field of the football field and just saying hi and thanking people for coming to our event.

Jeff Hall:

And I had several people come up to me literally in tears. They were so overwhelmed particularly if they’ve never seen a total eclipse before. It’s a pretty amazing experience. And I think it’s that absolute wonder and awe of what we see when we look into the cosmos that excites people and stokes this interest. When New Horizons flew past Pluto in 2015, that iconic picture of the heart on Pluto was above the fold of practically every newspaper on the planet. And NASA’s website got whatever plus a billion hits.

These kinds of things unify humanity. They’re not about any particular nation or any particular race. They speak to every human being, and I think it’s that sense of exploration and the unknown and awe that makes astronomy such an attractive and interesting and inspiring subject for all of us.

Wayne Parker:

So I’m curious about where this started for you. You have a PhD. You went to Johns Hopkins and Penn State, astronomy and astrophysics and now, you’ve come to this position. Was there in a time in your life when you were young in which you said where you felt that inspiration hit?

Jeff Hall:

Well, it probably grew on me throughout later elementary, middle and high school. I was always interested in numerous different areas of science whether that was physiology or entomology, microbiology, whatever. But yeah, I did end up getting a small telescope in middle school and some really good reference books that I poured through.

By the time I got to college, I entered college as a physics major very much anticipating that astronomy was the direction I was going to go. So yeah, it goes way back.

Wayne Parker:

If we go back to that elementary school time and we talk to Jeff in elementary school and we tell him that at this stage of his life, you’re going to be doing this in this position. How surprised would he have been on a scale of 1 to 10 with 10 being the most surprised?

Jeff Hall:

Well, probably 10. I would never … Growing up in Southside, Virginia, I would never have imagined myself ending up living in Arizona which is a very different place from Virginia. I love living here, but no. I was certainly at that age even aware of Lowell Observatory reading Cosmos by Carl Sagan. Of course, he mentions Percival Lowell and Lowe