Planet Hunter: Geoff Marcy and the Search for Other Earths
orange pink and magenta swirls overhead while below waves of clouds form a blanket so thick and wide that it looks like an ocean The weather on the shore is hot and humid But here at almost fourteen thousand feet above sea level temperatures rapidly drop below 20 degrees Fahrenheit even in the summer No trees or plantS grow on the rounded hills Coffee colored lava and gray cinder cover the mountaintop and crunch underfoot as workers arrive Except for the occasional howl of the wind all is silent
Gentle hills in the background dot the remote summit of Mauna Kea They are known as pu u in Hawaiian Some are important cultural landmarks named for Hawaiian goddesses When the sky begins to darken a loud buzzer warns any technicians walking on the decks and catwalks inside the domes A motor drones as the top and bottom shutters of one of the domes open The dome rotates rumbling like a train as its steel wheels roll along a track at the base One of the twin telescopes at the W M Keck Observatory points to the stars The night s viewing is about to begin Farther down the mountain about two thousand feet above sea level lies the W M Keck Observatory Headquarters From there astronomers can operate the telescope using a real time video connection between headquarters and the observatory Tonight Dr Geoffrey W Marcy an astronomer who hunts for planets is at headquarters Jason Mcllroy an observing assistant mans the telescope on the summit Mist hides the sky from headquarters but Geoff Marcy isn't worried He studies a computer screen that details the weather conditions at the summit Wow the viewing is excellent Jason Marcy says into a
The Keck I telescope peers through the dome opening into the starry night The Keck 1 and Keck IIl telescopes are the largest twin optical telescopes in the world Marcy uses the
Astronomers like Marcy no longer look directly through a telescope eyepiece Instead a device similar to a digital camera records the image in the telescope The image is transmitted to computers for
