Spellbinding Cosmic Beauty: Why Astronomy Images Matter

We all know that pictures are worth a thousand words, but does that maxim also apply to the world of astronomy?

A team based at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, Mass., has been trying to find out the answer with a years-long review of the lure of cosmic photos. The project, known as "Aesthetics & Astronomy," consists of astronomy outreach coordinators, science writers and astrophysicists, as well as education professors who specialize in aesthetics.

Since 2008, the group has been conducting experiments to determine how much the images produced by orbiting space telescopes, faraway Mars rovers and other interplanetary spacecraft are understood by professional scientists and the public alike.

Aesthetics & Astronomy was born 10 years ago in the backyard of a home in Ohio. Lisa and Jeffrey Smith, the team's two education professionals (and currently professors at the University of Otago, New Zealand) found themselves talking to Jeffrey's nephew about astronomy and reality. Were the vibrant colors and swirling shapes in popular astronomy images real? After all, weren't the images constructed by scientists from data, and weren't the colors in the pictures assigned arbitrarily by astrophysicists? [Amazing Space Photos by Chandra and Hubble Telescopes]

They soon realized that the astronomical community could best serve the public if astronomers explained how each color was chosen and why it was assigned a particular wavelength of light.

In Cambridge, the Smiths teamed with Megan Watzke, a science writer associated with the Chandra X-ray Observatory, and Kimberly Kowal, the visualization and media production coordinator for the Chandra team. Collaborating with Chandra astrophysicists Jay Bookbinder and Randall Smith, the growing team devised questions that could gauge the effectiveness of astronomical images.

For instance, what happens to the understanding of an image if the colors are altered, or if the scale is changed? What about captions do they help, and if so, what kinds of captions are the most helpful? Do astrophysicists and the public approach the images differently, and if so, what is that difference? What are some of the public's misconceptions about astronomy and astronomical images?

"Even after many years of working in science communication, I was surprised to hear in a focus group that someone felt 'tricked' when they learned that the colors in these astronomical images are applied," Kowal told SPACE.com in an email interview. "That is, if you were able to zoom across the galaxy in a spacecraft, stars and nebulae would not appear as the images show because of the way the human eye works." [How Chandra Observatory X-Rays the Sky (Video)]

"As a result, we at the Chandra X-ray Center have tried to be more proactive in our communications and more transparent in what we do with our images," Kowal said.

The team's first experiment was carried out in 2008. It consisted of both online questionnaires and in-person meetings; in all, 8,000 people completed the questionnaire.