Research -- Mostly Interstellar Medium
My research interest involves the diffuse interstellar medium, the gas
and dust that is found spread out between the stars in the Milky Way, our
Galaxy. If you happen not to be an astronomer (or if you are, but care
only for the origin of the Universe and its large scale structure) you
may not have given much thought to the interstellar medium, much less
realized its importance or the difficulty one has in observing and
understanding it. Stars die. New ones come together, are born, from the
interstellar gas. That happens in dense dark clouds of interstellar
material, but those clouds form from the diffuse interstellar gas, which
also serves as an atmosphere--a very dynamic atmosphere--for all of the
galactic activity. Imagine for the moment that the Galaxy is a
motorcycle, and that you would like to know how it works. How many ways
can you slice it up? (Ask Pirsig.) Now imagine that you can only see
the motorcycle at night, even then only with your peripheral vision, and
that you are unable to touch it. It works fine, and looks great with the
afterimage of James Dean sitting on it, but it's tough to get a grip on
its workings. So you go to the library, maybe Chilton's has a book that
would help. But you find that the books are all written by people who
could only see motorcycles at night, even then only with their peripheral
vision, and could not touch one either. It may not have kept them from
telling you what they think is going on, but you'd best not mistake it
for the final truth.
Had the diffuse interstellar medium not done its job, you would not
exist. Trying to understand just what it does and how it does it, those
are the poetic adventures of my life. Fortunately, the challenge is
shared by hundreds of other astronomers, in many parts of the world,
people whom I feel priveleged to know as friends. We get together from
time to time, talk about what we have seen, try to make better sense out
of it than we did the last time and to formulate better questions.
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