The International Astronomical Union (IAU) last week announced its very first triannual prize for outreach and education. The News Review is proud to congratulate one of its own as the prize goes to the Astronomy Picture of the Day team at NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. This NASA outreach website is curated jointly by Greenbelter Jerry Bonnell and Robert Nemiroff.
Bonnell, a News Review member, is a resident of Lakeside Drive and a University of Maryland scientist at Goddard. His longtime collaborator Nemiroff, a professor at Michigan Technological University, also has Greenbelt ties, having worked for several years at Goddard.
The prize recognizes the Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) which, seven days per week for over 25 years without fail, has published an astronomical image and its description to the web (apod.nasa.gov). Bonnell and Nemiroff will be traveling to South Korea this summer to accept the prize for their team. In Bonnell’s words, “It feels really great to receive this recognition by the IAU. We are proud that APOD has become so international in scope.” The first-ever APOD was published on June 16, 1995, and featured a small picture of earth as though it were a neutron star, with the light bending around it so viewers could see what was behind it.
Bonnell and Nemiroff are the founders and continuing authors of APOD. On a daily basis one of them selects an image or video from hundreds sent in by amateur and professional photographers worldwide and writes an explanatory text. Their wide interpretation of astronomy has featured – apart from a wealth of directly astronomical images of star clusters and galaxies from major observatories and space telescopes – a quilt, a sonic boom, astronomical cats and teapots. Among the astro-cognoscenti, a photo credit on APOD is considered quite the coup.
APOD selections play no favorites and include material from universities, government labs and enthusiastic amateurs. Bonnell remarks that keen amateur astrophotographers frequently have equipment and capabilities that rival government and university observatories. Both Bonnell and Nemiroff are in demand as lecturers to amateur and professional astronomy organizations.
Selecting APODs is not merely picking eye-catching or dramatic content; it includes judging whether the photos are real or contrived. That is hard to do when most images are already intensively processed to bring out features that aren’t normally visible to the human eye. It includes judging what people will find interesting at multiple levels to create a range that appeals to all audiences. It includes doing the background research to provide meaningful and comprehensible information and to create links to topics outside the pair’s individual research interests. Each selected image may take many hours to ready for publication.
Both were working at Goddard Space Flight Center during the early 1990s as the web began to revolutionize how information was disseminated. After realizing that the web was ready for prime time, they had the APOD inspiration. Suppose that each day a picture and an annotated discussion of it could be put on the web for people to read and that links could take the viewer to other sites to pursue their interests in depth? Although some visionaries at this stage of the website game picked avenues that ultimately made them billionaires, the APOD pair settled on something that, though it hasn’t made their fortune, has given them worldwide recognition for the benefit they brought to astronomy and arguably done more for the world than other sites one might name.
This simple premise has proven extraordinarily effective, with the site consistently being a top contender among NASA-supported websites – often second only to the hub that is the top-level NASA.gov site itself. After some initial experimentation, the two applied for NASA grants to support their fledgling site and have successfully competed for continued funding. Compared to most major NASA websites, they operate on a shoestring; the two of them work on it part time and it involves a Ph.D. astronomy student and part-time IT support provided by NASA. For web hits and reputation-stoking per dollar of cost, it’s probably NASA’s best return on investment.
Despite pressure to add the flash-bang-pop of many websites, the two have (some would say stubbornly) resisted embroidering it and have kept their offering simple and effective – much like it was on Day One. Each day, a picture, and for each picture a description written to be comprehensible to laypersons but leading to ever-deeper discussions via links on the web. The archive of photos, descriptions and links has grown to a classic collection that is searchable, with more than 6,500 documented images accumulated over 25 years. They have also co-authored two illustrated books, Astronomy: 365 Days and The Universe: 365 Days (available on amazon.com).
Bonnell and Nemiroff are, as is not uncommon in their calling, quite tongue-in-cheek. They note, as did the very first page in 1995, that their homilies are written by a professional astronomer – an idea which, for whatever reason, continues to tickle their fancy.
The site does not only appeal to fans in English-speaking countries. A dedicated team of supporters worldwide translates the material into multiple languages on dedicated websites in their own countries. At the present count, over 20 languages are represented – spanning the globe. One may accurately say that the sun never sets on APOD.
Its viewers range from other professional astronomers to people of all ages and all walks of life. One member of the APOD advisory board is a young woman who is now working on her doctorate in astronomy, having been captivated by APOD when, as a 12-year-old, she began translating the site. The awakening of young people like her, as well as individuals of every possible age and profession whose interest in and understanding of astronomy are deepened, is exactly why APOD was awarded the prize.
Meanwhile, the News Review is proud to say that Bonnell and his wife Letty are both News Review members. Not every small community newspaper has a professional astronomer helping it with image processing (a task shared by Jeff Jones, himself a Goddard alumnus and expert photographer). Letty Bonnell, Jerry’s wife and high-school sweetheart, is a retired professor of art history from Loyola University in Baltimore and works on the News Review’s Art Beat. She’s a writer and photographer of art-related stories for the newspaper – so the News Review has both a professional astronomer and a professional art historian. The Bonnells’ sons, James and Christopher, now all grown up, worked as youngsters at Generous Joe’s in Roosevelt Center, played tennis and softball on Braden Field, skated at Wells Ice Rink and went to local schools. That’s about as Greenbelt as it gets.