Sky & Telescope - January 2023 - 11

OBITUARY
IN BRIEF
Remembering Frank Drake,
1930-2022
FRANK DRAKE, a pioneer in the search
for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI),
died on September 2nd at the age of 92.
Born in 1930 in Chicago, Drake first
thought about alien life at the age of
eight, when his father told him of other
worlds. After earning an engineering
physics degree at Cornell University,
Drake served three years as an electronics
officer on a Navy cruiser before completing
graduate studies in astronomy at
Harvard University, working with stellar
astronomer Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin.
At his first position after graduation,
at the National Radio Astronomy
Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia,
Drake was finally able to pursue
his boyhood dream of searching for
alien life. For two months in 1960, he
pointed the observatory's 85-foot Tatel
dish alternately at two nearby Sun-like
stars, Tau Ceti and Epsilon Eridani,
searching for transmissions along
particular frequencies. Dubbed " Project
Ozma, " this first study shaped SETI
efforts for decades to come (S&T: Jan.
1960, p. 140).
The project found no real signals
but drew public attention and, one
year later, the U.S. National Academy
of Sciences funded the organization
of a SETI-themed conference. Drake
organized the agenda, breaking down
became chaotic, undergoing multiple
encounters with Titan, Iapetus, and
other satellites. Those encounters might
be responsible for Titan's slightly elongated
orbit today.
If the moon ended up grazing near
Saturn, the planet's tidal forces would
have torn it apart to create the bright
and icy rings. The timeline fits in nicely
with the young age some researchers
have previously suggested for the rings
(S&T: Sept. 2021, p. 14).
Regardless of whether it created the
rings, the icy moon's elimination would
have changed Saturn's precession and
broken the resonance with Neptune.
the probability of finding alien intelligence
into several factors, items that
turned into what is now known as the
Drake Equation (S&T: Dec. 1998, p. 36).
This equation has shaped SETI efforts
as much as if not more so than Project
Ozma did.
Drake was also instrumental in
sending out signals of our own, including
the plaques bolted to Pioneer 10
and 11 and the Golden Record sent out
with Voyager 1 and 2. Even before these,
as director of the Arecibo Observatory
between 1971 and 1981, he used the
300-meter dish to send a coded message
in the direction of globular cluster M13.
In 1984, Drake moved to California
for positions at the University of
California, Santa Cruz, and the SETI
Institute. He continued SETI work for
the rest of his life. Drake is survived by
his wife, two daughters, three sons by a
previous marriage, a brother, a niece, a
nephew, and four grandchildren.
¢MONICA YOUNG
Luke Dones (Southwest Research
Institute, Boulder) is impressed the
team has reproduced so many aspects
of the Saturnian system. But he notes,
" They take for granted that the rings are
young, which is not established. "
For his part, Lissauer says he is " not
convinced that it's correct, nor that it's
wrong, " adding that the idea has " surprisingly,
many potential pluses. "
A better measurement of Saturn's
interior, gravity field, and precession
rate might test parts of the Chrysalis
scenario, Lissauer says, but " it's really
difficult to confirm. "
¢GOVERT SCHILLING
New Authority for
Mauna Kea
New stewardship of Mauna Kea, which
hosts some of the world's largest telescopes,
could change the face of astronomy
at the summit. The University of
Hawaii has overseen the construction of
13 telescopes at the peak over the past 50
years, but new construction often occurred
over the protest of Native Hawaiians. Now,
management will transition to an 11-member
Mauna Kea Stewardship and Oversight
Authority that includes a broad spectrum
of voices. After a transition period of five
years (starting July 1, 2023), this group will
have jurisdiction over all state-leased lands
on Mauna Kea, including the 550-acre
astronomy precinct that hosts 12 of the
13 telescopes, the Hale Pōhaku complex
that hosts visiting astronomers, and the
access road that takes visitors up to the
summit. The new authority will oversee
the telescopes' subleases, up for renewal
in 2033, and make decisions about the
in-limbo construction of the Thirty Meter
Telescope (TMT).
¢MONICA YOUNG
Read details at https://is.gd/Mauna.
First Inter-Venusian
Asteroid
The discovery of an asteroid inside Venus's
orbit might be the first of a new population
in the inner solar system, suggests a study
published August 13th in the Monthly Notices
of the Royal Astronomical Society. A
team of astronomers spotted the asteroid
on the night of January 4, 2020, using
the 48-inch Samuel Oschin telescope
at Palomar Observatory. Later measurements
showed it's always within Venus's
orbit. At the discovery team's request, the
Pauma band of indigenous peoples have
named the worldlet 594913 'Ayló'chaxnim,
(pronounced ai-LOH-chakh-nym), meaning
" Venus Girl " in the group's Luiseño
language. It's as red as asteroids in the
main belt, indicating its possible origin, and
it spans 2 kilometers (1.2 miles), surprisingly
large for an inner-solar-system object.
Team lead Bryce Bolin (Caltech) notes that
seeing a large object early on suggests
there might be more asteroids within
Venus's orbit than previously thought. But
'Ayló'chaxnim's orbit isn't stable: It's probably
a recent arrival, and simulations show
that in the next 10 million years or so it has
a high chance of smashing into Venus.
¢DAVID DICKINSON
sk yand tele scope .o r g * JANUARY 2023 11
SETH SHOSTAK / SETI
https://www.is.gd/Mauna
Sky & Telescope - January 2023

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Sky & Telescope - January 2023
