Space legends.(Interview)

The world's best-known amateur astronomer the first apostle of manned exploration of Mars a brilliant and pioneering astrophysicist the American Enterprise sat down with three of the most provocative figures in space science--David Levy, Robert Zubrin & Freeman Dyson--to converse about the heavens, the earth, and how the twain might meet.

DAVID LEVY

In 1993, amateur astronomer David Levy's name entered science history for the long haul, rather like Edmund Halley and Edwin Hubble, when he and his observation partners discovered Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9--whose subsequent spectacular collision with Jupiter was among the most extraordinary events ever witnessed in the solar system. Discoverer of 21 comets, author of dozens of books, science editor of Parade magazine, and a regular in that other Bible of the heavens, Sky and Telescope, Levy is the nation's foremost popularizer of astronomy. The motivation of this compleat amateur is simply a love of the skies. TAE associate editor Bill Kauffman spoke with Levy amidst the array of 14 telescopes in his backyard observatory in southern Arizona, where the names of his comets are engraved on the scopes with which he made the discoveries.

TAE: So many of the great astronomical discoveries were made by "amateurs" --from Herschel's detection of Uranus to your co-discovery of Comet Shoemaker Levy 9. Is it still possible for amateurs to make significant discoveries, or has astronomy joined, say, physics, as the province of professionals?

LEVY: Just a few months ago Bill Bradfield, who lives in Australia, discovered a comet visually. It is easier for Southern Hemisphere people to find comets than it is for those in the Northern Hemisphere because the U.S. government funds a number of programs--a lot of them in the wake of Shoemaker-Levy 9's collision with Jupiter--designed to detect comets and asteroids before they hit the Earth. Almost every comet is now found by one of these programs. So instead of having comets like Shoemaker-Levy or Levy-Rudenko, you've got comets called LINEAR or LONEOS, after a funded program.

TAE: Very unromantic, isn't it?

LEVY: I would think so. They're getting more comets, but they've taken some of the fun out of it. I've now searched for ten years and I don't know if I'll ever find a comet again. But I love the search.