2020 has been a rough year. As we reach the final column of the year, let me share what's worth looking forward to in astronomy in 2021.
The Academic Hunger Games
The term "996" has become popular among office workers in recent years—working from 9am to 9pm, six days a week. Recently, while having dinner with classmates, one joked that in November, academics can't possibly work just 996—it's basically 007 (all day, every day). I must clarify that academia requires tremendous imagination, so work-life balance is essential, and I don't advocate for such grueling schedules. Like athletes, mindless practice is meaningless. But November is genuinely busy. Busy with what? Busy writing grant proposals.
Let me explain what professors do besides teaching. Generally, in the US (and it's similar elsewhere), the government allocates funds to the National Science Foundation (NSF) and NASA. University salaries typically cover only the professor's own pay, not enough to support a research team. So researchers must write proposals to NSF and NASA for research funding. In the review process, NSF and NASA invite external researchers to conduct double-blind evaluations (both parties are anonymous to ensure fairness). But global investment in science has been lackluster for decades. Although researchers write dozens of pages for each proposal, only about 15-20% actually get funded—a stark contrast to the 40-50% success rates of the 1990s.
While 15-20% (one in five or six) might sound okay, remember that those submitting proposals are already one-in-a-million experts in their fields. It's like watching the finals of "American Idol"—everyone competing has already beaten thousands of contestants to get there. As a reviewer myself, I know that most research clearly benefits humanity. But with limited government funding, reviewers can only nitpick: "This performance was quite good, just didn't move me" or "One note was slightly off-pitch."
Besides research funding (mainly for student salaries), astronomers also write proposals to apply for time on major telescopes. There are only a handful of cutting-edge telescopes in the world, with only 365 days per year, so everyone competes fiercely for a day or two annually. This fall was especially significant because the long-awaited James Webb Space Telescope is finally launching in late 2021. So Webb opened its first round of double-blind proposal submissions in November, and many of us spent the month working on those proposals.
The James Webb Space Telescope
The Webb Telescope's main mission is to replace the thirty-year-old Hubble Space Telescope. Simply put, after thirty years, astronomy is finally moving into a new home! But not everyone can move in immediately. Applying for Hubble time is already harder than getting research funding, with success rates around 10-15%. For Webb, I estimate success rates of only 5-7%. What's 5%? It's like the survival rate in "The Hunger Games"—not the first movie, but the finale, where all the tributes have already survived previous games and now must face each other.
So why does everyone want Webb time? Simply put, Webb will be the largest space telescope in history (6.5 meters). Its area is about six times larger than Hubble. To put it in perspective: the telescope is so big that no rocket can carry it directly—it must be folded using origami-like techniques, then mechanically unfolded in space.
Let me explain a few concepts. First, why build large telescopes? Imagine raindrops falling from the sky—cosmic light is like those drops. A larger bucket catches more rain simultaneously. Webb, being six times larger, collects light six times faster than Hubble. What took ten years to observe can now be done in under two. Larger telescopes can see fainter and more distant objects.
Second, you might ask why we spend so much effort launching telescopes into space when we could build them on Earth. Ground-based telescopes are also important and indeed much larger—the largest optical telescopes on Earth are around 30 meters (half a soccer field), which we can discuss later. But space telescopes are important for two reasons, both related to Earth's "cursed" atmosphere. First, atmosphere makes light blurry—that's why stars "twinkle" when viewed from the ground. Some observations require extremely precise positioning and tracking, like detecting hair-width movements across the South China Sea, which can only be achieved from space. Second, while Earth's atmosphere is beneficial—blocking harmful UV and X-rays—it also "filters out" useful information, limiting ground telescopes to wavelengths that penetrate the atmosphere. For example, besides blocking UV, Earth's water vapor also absorbs parts of infrared.
What breakthroughs can Webb bring? Regarding seeing farther: the universe itself is a time machine. Light speed is finite (about 300,000 km/s). Sunlight takes about eight minutes to reach Earth, meaning we see the Sun as it was eight minutes ago, not as it is now. The universe is vastly larger than this distance. A major branch of astrophysics studies extremely distant galaxies whose light has traveled billions of years to reach Earth.
It's like mailing a letter to yourself that takes twenty years to arrive—when you receive it, you glimpse your twenty-year-ago self. This is why we can understand the early universe: the universe is so large that if we can see farther, these "letters" were "sent" billions of years ago. Webb can see farther than Hubble, collecting letters from even earlier times, letting us better understand the early universe.
Regarding seeing different wavelengths, there's another hot topic in astronomy: searching for extraterrestrial civilizations beyond our solar system. Astronomers don't directly "look for" aliens (it's too far—impossible), but instead look for planets with atmospheres similar to Earth's. Imagine if aliens wanted to find Earth—the smart approach isn't sending spaceships bumbling around like in movies. The best method is to see whether sunlight passing through Earth has parts absorbed by our atmosphere. By understanding this absorbed light, we can deduce Earth's atmospheric composition and determine if the planet has signatures of life. This is also a Webb priority: looking for starlight that shows traces of absorption by water (and other organic gases) when passing through their planets.
Saying Goodbye for Now
Webb launching next year is certainly a scientific milestone (if it fails, astronomy would have to wait another thirty years to progress). But on the other hand, the fact that we've been using the aging Hubble for thirty years reflects a problem. People often ask why spend money on basic science. But what many don't realize is that research funding is a drop in the bucket compared to other government spending. Any single multinational corporation, if willing to let a bit slip through their fingers for research, could enable quantum leaps in science (imagine if our vaccine technology were ten times better—we wouldn't be in today's predicament). Yet in such dire circumstances, science is often first on the chopping block when governments cut budgets.
This creates an endless downward spiral. Researchers spend enormous effort applying for funding that other fields wouldn't bother with. The struggle for survival leaves no energy to communicate with the public. This lack of communication makes the public indifferent to science and gives bad actors opportunities. Then governments feel justified in cutting science budgets further, creating a vicious cycle that has led to today's research predicaments. This is what I've hoped to slightly change through these columns.
When Sin Chew approached me, I thought: as a science guy, my writing is naturally mediocre, and I certainly can't explain science as clearly as professional YouTube science communicators (I really like a channel called Veritasium—highly recommend). But what I can offer is the thoughts and reflections of a working researcher, sharing not just the joy of research but also its hardships. Finally, due to recent grant applications, research responsibilities, and mentoring students, I'm exhausted, so I'll take a break from writing. I look forward to sharing with you again in the future.