Discover - March-April 2022

Create, build, & learn with 7KHVH IXQ ȴ OOHG SURMHFW EDVHG
NLWV IHDWXUH WKH VXSSOLHV \RX
NEW! STEM Kits QHHG WR FUHDWH \RXU RZQ
from Discover magazine! SURMHFWV ZKLOH OHDUQLQJ WKH
EDVLFV RI HOHFWURQLFV FLUFXLWU\
DQG VRODU HQHUJ\ 7KH LQFOXGHG
VWHS E\ VWHS JXLGH LV HDV\
WR IROORZ ZKHWKHU \RX DUH D
VHDVRQHG HGXFDWRU RU D SDUHQW
ORRNLQJ IRU VRPHWKLQJ IXQ WR
GR ZLWK \RXU FKLOG

Perfect for
educators & families!

ORDER THESE EASY-TO-COMPLETE PROJECTS TODAY! P39954

MyScienceShop.com/DSCSTEM

Sales tax where applicable.



Darlene Cavalier has boosted
some of the biggest citizen science
projects in the nation — and wants
everyone to join in.

•BY JENNIFER WALTER ILLUSTRATIONS BY TERRI FIELD

She didn’t want to be a scientist when she
grew up. As a kid, Darlene Cavalier was more
interested in cheerleading and dancing than
in learning how to crunch numbers and snag
awards at science fairs. “I was a good student,”
she explains. But science just wasn’t her thing.

That might seem like an unexpected start for someone
like Cavalier, who’s since made her mark on the lives
of countless scientists and their work. Today, she’s the
founder and director of SciStarter, a national organiza-
tion that connects citizen scientists with established
researchers working on large-scale, data-driven projects.
She’s also the founder of Science Cheerleader, an organi-
zation for current and former professional cheerleaders
pursuing careers in science.

At the heart of Cavalier’s work is a common thread:
a mission to connect scientists and the public. Over
the years, she has worked with Discover on a variety
of projects to advance that mission, including a new
collaboration to support ScienceNearMe.org, a web and
mobile platform connecting families and the general
public with opportunities to explore and engage in
science from anywhere. She knows firsthand the joy
and wonder that can go into learning about discover-
ies that impact everyday life — only she takes things
a step further to help everyday people participate in

MAR/APR 2022 . DISCOVER 53

IN HER BOOK,
The Field Guide to
Citizen Science,
Cavalier and co-
authors Catherine
Hoffman and
Caren Cooper
offer 50 projects
for non-science
readers.

those discoveries. We caught up with Cavalier to learn Q What about citizen science? How did your FROM LEFT: TIMBER PRESS; ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY
more about the expanding field of citizen science, why it interest spark there?
matters, and how you can get involved. My family was very blue collar. I was the first one to go to
college, with the exception of my mom who went for two
Q Tell me about your background and how years to get her nursing degree. But they’re really smart
you got interested in science. people, and they can fix anything.
After I graduated college in 1991, I started working by
just taking the first job that I could. It was very close I started thinking, there’s gotta be a way for people who
to where my parents live and I was working in a mail- don’t have formal science degrees but find an interest
room, sending packages to different leads that editors later in life — or just don’t have an opportunity to go to
at Discover had put together for an awards program. college — to play a role in science. Plus, they’re funding
Basically, the editors would look through a bunch of basic research through their tax dollars and putting
different types of magazines, circle interesting innova- people in office who are deciding on issues that they
tions, and ship all those magazines down to where I could have a say in.
worked.
At that point in my career, I was getting a little tired.
It was my job to hunt down the people working on Discover had hired me in-house to run their awards
those innovations and mail them applications. All of this show, and I was commuting between Philadelphia and
New York. I was talking with the then-editor in chief,
CITIZEN SCIENTISTS ARE ACCELERATING who encouraged me to consider going back to school to
RESEARCH AND ENDING UP IN PEER-REVIEWED explore this innate interest I had in science. So when I
JOURNALS. went back to school, I pursued a master’s in liberal arts
from the University of Pennsylvania. That’s actually
matters because when the scientists would fill out the where I learned about citizen science, which goes by a lot
applications and mail them back, there was a sentence of different names.
in there: Tell us how your innovation benefits society, in
basically two sentences or less. Q I’ve also heard citizen science called
by a number of different terms, like DIY
That was fascinating to me. I had to take those answers science, for example. Are these terms for the
and enter them into a database, which meant I was read- same thing, or are they a bit different?
ing every single one of these entries. Occasionally I had The terminology is a huge hot-button issue … and there’s
to call the scientists if they’d forgotten to fill something real debate going on about how to describe these things.
out. I remember thinking, “I don’t know that I’ve ever With DIY science, you may or may not ever share your
talked to a scientist before this, but they are incredible.” data with anybody in your community. Some do! But
I would tell my family stories about them, too. it may not be actionable data. It could be for the sake of
exploring. And sometimes, more often than not, that
community does do amazing things with low-cost tools
that they build on their own.

Then there’s community science; it’s a very distinct field.
These are usually environmental justice communities

54 DISCOVERMAGA ZINE .COM

who act upon data at the local level to create social 5 WAYS YOU CAN BECOME
change. There’s also participatory research, and a lot of A CITIZEN SCIENTIST
different names in general. Public science is another that’s
being used. The field is emerging and as it continues to Citizen science gives curious people the opportunity to
grow, the terms we use are becoming better defined.
become extra sets of hands, eyes and ears in real scientific research.
Q I feel like citizen science is way more Bringing many people together to document endangered species,
visible than it was, say, 10 or 15 years ago. monitor water quality or watch the stars makes it possible to do
How would you say attitudes have shifted in science on larger scales and tackle bigger research questions.
the professional scientific community when
it comes to people without science degrees Here are just five of the hundreds of citizen science projects that
participating in the work? you can participate in. (They can all be found at SciStarter.org.)
I think it used to be harder to try to persuade profes-
VADIM SADOVSKI/SHUTTERSTOCK sional scientists that data or efforts among the lay public Nature’s Notebook app-based, and users can
could actually be useful. There were a lot of questions upload observations about
from the science community about data quality, and Volunteers in this project clouds, mosquito habitat,
these are valid questions for sure. There was also maybe “take the pulse of the planet” trees or land cover to give
a feeling of “they can’t possibly do what it took me so by documenting changes in researchers a global picture
long to study,” and just a sense of uneasiness overall. I’ve plants, animals and insects of how our planet is changing
seen that change pretty dramatically, although it’s still to help scientists understand over time.
there to a certain extent. how ecosystems are being
affected by climate change. You The Happiness Project
Part of the reason why we’ve seen that change is can join a regional campaign
because … there have been a number of projects that like Mayfly Watch or Pesky Help psychology researchers
posed questions that just couldn’t have been answered Plant Trackers, or choose from understand the relationship
without help from the public. That could be due to a few over 1,400 species to watch in between happiness and
people who happen to be strategically located in an area North America. Then, log your decision-making — by
where the scientists could just not get to. They could just observations on the Nature’s playing games. All you need
happen to see dragonfly swarms when nobody else was Notebook mobile app. to participate is the project’s
able to catch them, for example. Or it could be because smartphone app to access
there are millions of people sifting through tons of data Crowd the Tap games that subtly investigate
that is just impossible for professionals to sift through.
Volunteers test the water and how players approach risky
Citizen scientists are accelerating research and ending pipes in their homes decisions, while
up in peer-reviewed journals. More is being done too, to so researchers periodically asking
use proper tags and taxonomies. So as papers are pub- can map them to rate
lished, the phrase citizen science is being used. Now it’s the pipe their happiness
easier to look up and have evidence that certain papers infrastructure level. Game
use data from citizen scientists; we didn’t even have that in the United and happiness
language before. Now it’s a field of practice, which is the States and scores
other thing that helps to legitimize it. identify become
contaminated data that
Q So, here’s the big question: Why is water supplies. researchers use
citizen science important? All you need is a to figure out how
Well, it’s important for different reasons to different penny and a magnet expectations contribute
people, and even at different points along the course of (to determine whether pipes
one single person’s lifetime. We all belong to different are made of steel, copper, to happiness.
communities, and at times we all play different roles. plastic or lead, which is not
Some years I’m a parent of young kids, so I have time always obvious visually). You Exoplanet Watch
to do certain things and everything’s around my kids’ can also share observations
interests. In my stage of life now, I’m starting to take care about your tap water like color, Experiment time on big
of my own parents, so the ways that I bond with them, smell and taste. If you live near telescopes like Hubble is
the amount of time that I have, those things are taking a participating library or school, precious, so NASA needs
priority. So we really want to try to create something you can check out a kit to test backyard astronomers to help
where there’s always an on-ramp to citizen science, even your water chemistry. researchers narrow down when
if it’s different opportunities for the same person who and where to turn their sights to
just changes identities over time. GLOBE Observer find planets outside of our solar
system. Every day, the project
But on a broader level: The world needs citizen The NASA-sponsored GLOBE posts new exoplanet targets for
scientists to accelerate important research, advance project seeks to understand volunteers to keep an eye on.
our changing environment and If you don’t have a telescope,
climate through crowd-sourced you can still aid the search by
observations. The project is analyzing data from others’
observations. — BRIANNA BARBU

MAR/APR 202 2 . DISCOVER 55

discoveries and broaden the range of perspectives, values it allowed us to do some evaluation and measure what we
and observations that help shape science. Citizen science could do better.
also provides public access to data, research agendas, tools
and other resources that are largely funded by citizens’ tax Some of the feedback was that scientists had not been
dollars, to help create a better-informed society. able to connect directly with volunteers before. We forget
about that part. When you have a citizen science project
Q SciStarter is primarily a website where where you’re asking people to collect data, it’s because you
citizen scientists can find a variety of can’t get it yourself. Usually somebody somewhere else
projects to work on. But how do you reach helps out, but you never really know who they are.
communities offline to help them get involved
with citizen science? We did face-to-face Zoom conversations, listened to
In addition to authoring or co-authoring two books on questions directly from the volunteers — that was just all
citizen science, one for academia and policy-makers [The stuff we loved. We love watching and building community.
Rightful Place of Science: Citizen Science] and the other
written for the general public [The Field Guide to Citizen Q You recently launched a new initiative
Science], we work closely with the other organization I called Science Near Me. What can you
founded: Science Cheerleaders. For example, we were PIs tell us about it?
[principal investigators] in a project that compared growth Science Near Me is an extension of SciStarter and it unites
rates of microbes on Earth and on the ISS [International traditionally separate offerings from museums, science
Space Station]. More than 4,000 fans helped collect festivals, citizen science, policy forums, after-school
microbes at games after we shot microbe collection kits programs, maker programs, astronomy clubs and more.
from a T-shirt bazooka into the stands at a Philadelphia
While there are many resources for people to learn
THE FOUNDATIONS OF CITIZEN SCIENCE SELF- about science, we wanted to create a place for people
GUIDED MODULE INCLUDES PARTICIPATION IN from all backgrounds and interests to easily find ways to
TWO FUN AND SIMPLE PROJECTS. interact. ScienceNearMe.org makes it easier for people to
connect with the right opportunity across a spectrum of
76ers game! Forty-eight samples were flown on the ISS and STEM topics and venues, and helps accelerate research on
some participants were cited in the related papers. science engagement and learning in the process.

Another initiative: We did a pilot program with librar- We have tools like the Opportunity Finder, which lets
ies, and the facilitators who already reach in-person com- people search a network of partner organizations’ data-
munities are our key. A facilitator might be the librarian, bases to identify programs, events and projects by location,
for example; she has direct contact with everybody coming age levels, topic, type of engagement and more. Now, in
into the library and usually particular groups that use the one place, you can find an event at a local museum, an
library, like the 55 and older community, who might meet astronomy talk at a local pub or a science policy forum
up there already. There are actual, physical kits that people open to the public online. Check it out!
can check out, with everything they need to get involved in
a project. Q How can someone interested in a citizen
science project get involved? What
And I really want to stress that our initiatives are a team resources do they need?
effort. We do everything in partnership with people and Typically, no prior experience is needed, just a com-
organizations that also believe in the power of the people. mitment to make and share observations following
the project’s protocols. Some projects seek people with
Q Did the pandemic change citizen science specialized skills, instruments, access to specific locations,
in any ways you’ve observed? or who fit particular demographics. Some projects offer
We saw more flexibility from project scientists who were online or in-person training so volunteers can learn how
desperate for people to get involved in their project and to use sensors, follow protocols, analyze data and even find
could no longer go somewhere, like to a national park resources to act upon the data to shape policies.
for example. We also saw more of a willingness for the
scientists to communicate online. There had been years And if you aren’t quite ready to commit or want to learn
where we were saying, come on, join us online and talk more about citizen science first, SciStarter and Arizona
about your project to these communities. It was like pull- State University developed the Foundations of Citizen
ing teeth for some of them. So that was really nice because Science self-guided module, which includes participation
in two fun and simple projects. That’s at SciStarter.org/
training. And some good projects for beginners, where
they can also track all their contributions to projects, can
be found at SciStarter.org/affiliates. D

This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.

Jennifer Walter is a science writer based in Wisconsin.

56 DISCOVERMAG A ZINE .COM



HISTORY LESSONS

BY SHOSHANA AKABAS

An Eye for Ants KNOWN FOR HER — an entomolo- PORTRAIT: COURTESY ELEANOR LOWENTHAL. ANT: BARTBOTJE/WIKIMEDIA COMMONS. SPECIMENS: MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY. PHOTOGRAPHED BY CRYSTAL MAIER. COPYRIGHT 2021, PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE
SPEED, MEMORY gist specializing in
AS THE HARVARD MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE and accuracy, ants — published
ZOOLOGY’S ANT COLLECTION RAPIDLY GREW IN THE technician more than 430
1950S, ONE WOMAN WORKED BEHIND THE SCENES Eleanor articles, among
WITH EXTRAORDINARY SPEED, ACCURACY AND Lowenthal (top them some of
ARTISTRY. TODAY’S RESEARCHERS ARE STILL REAPING right) mounted the most cited
THE BENEFITS. as many as 200 scientific papers
ant specimens in history, and
T he night after their wedding in 1954, my grandpar- per day at the wrote over 30
ents sat on the bed in their motel room, counting Harvard Museum books, including 2020’s Tales From the
the cash in my grandpa’s pockets. There was barely of Comparative Ant World. He also received dozens of
enough to open a bank account. So, the next morn- Zoology in the awards, from the Pulitzer Prize to the
ing, Eleanor Lowenthal — my grandmother — in desperate 1950s. National Medal of Science.
need of income to put her husband through graduate school, When Eleanor joined the depart-
walked into the Harvard Museum of Comparative Zoology. ment in the ’50s, researchers around
There, she convinced some of the most prominent scientists in the world were racing to collect and
the world that she was the perfect person to mount and catalog catalog specimens. As Wilson shifted
their burgeoning ant collection. research toward smaller, less glamorous
species that nonetheless held ecological
At the time, a promising graduate student named E.O. significance, he set the stage for conser-
Wilson was coming up in the department. Wilson, who passed vation biology, centered on preserving
away in December 2021 at the age of 92, was called the “father ecosystem biodiversity. Behind the
of biodiversity” and the “heir of Darwin.” The myrmecologist scenes, technicians like my grand-
mother preserved the specimens that
58 DISCOVERMAGA ZINE .COM furthered Wilson’s work and continue to
provide new insights and opportunities
for researchers across the globe.

AN UNLIKELY CONTRIBUTOR
As a teenager, Eleanor spent hours
roaming the halls of the American
Museum of Natural History in New
York City, flipping through gift shop
books about insect mounting. She once
had kept a praying mantis in a glass jar
for a whole year. But that was the extent
of her entomology experience.

During her job interview at Harvard,
when Philip Jackson Darlington, one
of the most influential zoologists of
the 20th century, asked Eleanor about
her specialty, she replied, “Oh, I like
everything.”

“He probably realized right then
that I didn’t have a specialty,” she says.

She’d worked in a hardware store
in Mamaroneck, New York, during
her high school summers, but none of
the shops in Cambridge would hire a
woman, and she had no typing skills to
be a secretary. She had dropped out of
the Tyler School of Fine Arts to marry;

Prostate problems are
no laughing matter.
Seriously, we know.

So stop clowning around,
and start taking control of
your prostate health today!

One of the signs of an aging prostate is an increase Contains COMPREHENSIVE
in the need to urinate, often many times per day. FORMULATION of herbs,
That’s where The Prostate Formula can help. vitamins, amino acids & zinc
For over 20 years, Real Health’s Prostate Formula
has helped men support: Also available in 1 MONTH SUPPLY.

3 Healthy Prostate Function*
3 Better Bladder Emptying*
3 Reduced Urinary Urges*

*These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration.
These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease.

Find us at
www.RealHealth.com

HISTORY LESSONS

that artistic background was a selling point AT THE HARVARD Eleanor could process ants as quickly as Wilson BUILDING: JON BILOUS/DREAMSTIME. ANT: PASCAL GRUENER/SHUTTERSTOCK. SPECIMENS: MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY, HARVARD UNIVERSITY. PHOTOGRAPHED BY CRYSTAL MAIER. COPYRIGHT 2021, PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE
for the Harvard job, and she was hired on MUSEUM OF could mail them back from his expeditions to
the spot. COMPARATIVE Australia and Papua New Guinea. She sometimes
ZOOLOGY (top mounted as many as 200 a day.
These days, artistic backgrounds are left), Lowenthal
common for volunteers and interns and mounted many And Eleanor’s advantage wasn’t just dexterity and
even researchers, explains Crystal Maier, the specimens (top fine motor skills: She also had an exceptional
current curatorial associate and collection right) collected memory. In the mornings, as she was handed
manager for entomology at the museum. by famed vial after vial filled with ants, the associate
After all, if art is making something from entomologist — director detailed the contents, scientific
what exists, and science is about making then graduate names, and specimen’s origins to be written
possible what comes next, at the intersection lies the student — on the identification tag. My grandmother
act of preservation. At the time, however, hiring a E.O. Wilson. retained it all, and the researchers were
21-year-old woman who’d dropped out of art school floored that she never wasted a minute
was a significant gamble. “We’re able writing anything down.
to pull more Ulric Neisser, a researcher at Cornell
It paid off. Eleanor’s job as a technician required and more data University, wrote about Eleanor’s abilities
the same manual dexterity and coordination that out of these
art school had demanded. She began each day at the specimens decades later in his book Memory Observed, noting
museum mixing fresh glue to the perfect consis- than we that Eleanor’s supervisor at Harvard “confirmed …
tency. Then she pulled the dead ants from their ever thought the numbers of insects she had to remember on a
alcohol vials and set them out to dry. Some ants we could.” typical day. She was the best technician who ever
were miniscule — barely 3 millimeters long — and worked for him.”
their thin legs were tangled like steel wool, requiring
patience and a careful hand. After writing a label With new species regularly being discovered,
for each specimen, she’d balance the ant’s thorax on Wilson recalled the department had “a continuous,
the corner of a tiny cardstock triangle with a spot rolling sense of discovery and adventure.” The
of glue, then spear the pin precisely through the collection is now home to approximately 1 million
handwritten label and cardstock. ant specimens. Eleanor felt lucky to tap into to
conversation around her, which included Wilson’s
The job required her to work quickly, yet precisely. early work on the ant genus Lasius, using the collec-
“The average person never really hears about the tion she was mounting. Noting how characteristics
machinery and the expertise and the effort that goes such as antennal length and head shape diverged
into it,” said Wilson in an interview before his death. in specimens from eastern North America (where
related species shared territory) led Wilson to
Rushing could risk ruining a rare specimen, but develop the theory of character displacement, which
explained that when two similar species come into
contact with each other, they often quickly evolve to
differentiate themselves.

Wilson frequently used ants as a model to
help paint a much larger picture of evolution or

60 DISCOVERMAGA ZINE .COM

biodiversity. “Ants are excellent — the variety of If art is making renewed interest in going back to natural history
them and the environmental influences — they’re something collections and trying to use them for different
excellent subjects to use in developing the discipline from what purposes,” Benson explains, such as testing bird
of ecosystem studies,” he explained. They show, for exists, and feathers from the 1950s for toxic chemicals.
example, that cooperation can evolve as an effective science is
species survival trait — in ants, as well as humans. about making Now, photographers are digitizing the Harvard
According to Wilson, ants are “not something that possible ant collection using photo-stacking techniques to
the average person would think about, not ever, what comes create 3D images of each ant, and Maier says they’re
once,” yet they’ve contributed significantly to our next, at the only beginning to unlock the potential of the collec-
understanding of the natural world. intersection tion. “We’re working with researchers now who can
lies the act of even pull DNA from these older specimens,” says
PRESERVING A LEGACY preservation. Maier, “and so the boundaries keep getting pushed
It wasn’t a coincidence that Eleanor found work in further and further, and we’re able to pull more
entomology. Wilson’s high-profile research on ants TODAY CALLED and more data out of these specimens than we ever
cracked an opening for women in the previously “the father of thought we could.”
male-dominated field of conservation, which biodiversity,”
had been funded largely by hunting dues and was Wilson’s (above) Eleanor didn’t realize the impact of her contribu-
centered around studying big game in the first half early work on tions at the time — the technician role was just a job
of the 20th century. Though the only woman in the ant genus that paid $38 a week. Her work over several years
her department aside from the secretary, Eleanor Lasius (opposite at the museum was a sentence in a larger story: She
was one in a long line of female technicians in the page, bottom) led also competed in international sailing competi-
Harvard Entomology Department, humble workers him to develop tions, met with the pope, built a harpsichord, and
making largely unseen contributions. the evolutionary
theory of taught her granddaughter to weave on a loom. But
“Especially in entomology collections, there’s character she’s come to appreciate the significance of her work
so much work that goes into these specimens that displacement. on a project that spans centuries. “You can see how
doesn’t get credited,” says Maier. it goes from one era to another,” says Eleanor. “It’s
RICK FRIEDMAN/GETTY so important to have this library for people to make
Even when women’s early work has been connections and new discoveries.”
credited, the language used to describe their
contributions often minimized their role in the As the collection grows year after year — each
team, not mentioning them by name. Maier ant containing untapped data that can expand
recently discovered some department reports from our understanding of evolution, ecosystems, and
the mid-1800s, including lines such as, “A large symbiosis in the natural world — technicians
amount of spreading and setting insects was done like Eleanor have ensured they’re preserved for
by the lady assistant,” and, “The collection has been whomever comes next. D
remarkably free from pests … due to the incessant
care of the lady assistant.” Shoshana Akabas is a writer and teacher based in New
York City.
“It was the case for a very long time that women
were in the role of assistants,” says Etienne Benson,
associate professor of history and sociology of
science at the University of Pennsylvania. “Women
were moved into positions that didn’t have as much
status,” he says, “but these jobs turned out to be
really critical and take a lot of expertise.”

Eleanor was also responsible for the day-to-day
preservation of the entomology collections; because
of this skillful preservation, even 250-year-old
specimens still look as good as the day they were
collected. The Harvard Museum of Comparative
Zoology functions like a library (specimens can
be borrowed for study or examined on site), and
serves as a training hub for the next generation of
scientists who use the collection in ways Wilson
and my grandmother probably never imagined.

“In the past couple of decades, there’s been a

MAR/APR 2022 . DISCOVER 61

OUT THERE

BY NOLA TAYLOR TILLMAN

THE NIGHT SKY
could look like this
in about 4 billion
years, when
the Andromeda
Galaxy is
expected to
collide with our
own Milky Way.

Milky Way’s Crash- The dance of galaxy, it has a spiral shape. Two smaller NASA/ESA/Z. LEVAY AND R. VAN DER MAREL/STSCI/T. HALLAS/AND A. MELLINGER
Bang Neighborhood the galaxies galaxies stand out: the Triangulum
is slow and Galaxy, dancing around Andromeda,
THE FATE OF OUR GALAXY — AND MANY OTHERS violent, filled and the Large Magellanic Cloud (LMC),
— IS PLAYED OUT IN A SLOW BUT SURPRISINGLY with both life orbiting the Milky Way. The rest of
DRAMATIC COSMIC DANCE. and death. the neighborhood is filled mostly with
satellites of the pair, smaller galaxies
Stars and galaxies move around us at a pace that seems hovering like adoring fans. These galax-
glacial on human time scales. Their dance is exceed- ies flit about, but eventually will meld
ingly gradual, taking place over billions of years. But with their larger companions. When
if we could see time the same way the stars do, the that happens, it will not be the first time
neighborhood around our Milky Way Galaxy would appear our galaxy has bumped into another.
surprisingly active.
ANCIENT ARTIFACTS
Galaxies swing around one another, slowly spiraling The Milky Way suffered its first major
together until they merge. Many don’t travel alone but bring collision early in its lifetime, roughly
companions with them, in a dark collision that may tear some 10 billion years ago. Prior to that, it
stars from the heart of their homes and splay them across the probably had a handful of scrapes
sky. Other regions grow rich in gas and dust and begin, in with smaller galaxies, but the dramatic
their newfound opulence, to birth new stars. The dance of the crash into a galaxy referred to as Gaia
galaxies is slow and violent, filled with both life and death. Enceladus left lasting scars. For a long
time, those scars were hidden, their
The Milky Way drives the motion of the collection of more absence puzzling astronomers. It took
than 100 galaxies known as the Local Group. Within that the European Space Agency’s Gaia space
group, only the Andromeda Galaxy is larger than the Milky telescope to bring them to light in 2018,
Way — roughly 125 percent more massive — and like our after years of hints.

62 DISCOVERMAG A ZINE .COM

NASA/ESA/Z. LEVAY AND R. VAN DER MAREL/STSCI/T. HALLAS/AND A. MELLINGER “Before the Gaia data was released, we thought Sagittarius Sagittarius is also triggering waves of star forma-
the Milky Way was a very quiet galaxy with no dra- is triggering tion in the Milky Way. Researchers have found
matic impact,” says Eloisa Poggio, an astronomer at waves of star patches of star formation that coincide with the
the Astrophysical Observatory of Turin in Italy. “It’s formation in closest approach, or pericenter, of the dying galaxy.
more complicated than we thought before.” the Milky Way. Gravitational interactions push together piles of gas
Gravitational and dust to create regions ripe for starbirth. Tomás
Gaia Enceladus was a dwarf galaxy, slightly interactions Ruiz-Lara, an astronomer at Kapteyn Astronomical
smaller than the Milky Way, perhaps 2 billion years create regions Institute, the Netherlands, found bursts of stel-
old when it crashed into us. The collision would ripe for lar formation roughly 6.5 billion, 2 billion, and
have significant ramifications. The Milky Way was starbirth. 1 billion years ago, and tied each one to several
a stubby disk from which stars were flung out, cre- pericentric passes of Sagittarius.
ating its halo. Part of the disk then became unstable THIS ILLUSTRATED
and collapsed into a barlike structure. Over time, sequence of “The main surprise is that something so small
a new, thin disk was created. When the show was the future Milky is able to cause all these effects,” says Ruiz-Lara.
over, the Milky Way was a different galaxy. Way/Andromeda “Sagittarius is an important actor in the film of the
collision starts origin and evolution of our galaxy.”
“This is a key pivotal moment in the Milky Way’s with present
life,” says Vasily Belokurov, part of one day (top left) DESTRUCTION AHEAD
of the two teams that co-discovered and unfolds over Sagittarius isn’t the only galaxy ready to smash into
the ancient artifact. “It unleashed a 4 billion years the Milky Way. The LMC, the fourth largest object
sequence of transformations in the until our galaxy in the Local Group, is slowly spiraling towards us.
Milky Way that have changed it into becomes warped For decades, astronomers thought that the massive
the Milky Way we know.” (bottom right). irregular galaxy and its smaller cousin, the Small
Magellanic Cloud (SMC), had already made several
For the next few billion years, the loops around the Milky Way. But in 2007, astrono-
Milky Way was quiet, consuming the mers used the Hubble Space Telescope to confirm
occasional satellite galaxy but leaving that the pair were on their first approach.
the larger ones alone. That changed
around 6 billion years ago when the Although the LMC won’t merge with us for
Sagittarius Galaxy made its own another 2 billion years, it is already making its
grand entrance.

Sagittarius is an elliptical galaxy,
one of the nearest neighbors to the
Milky Way, and is coming to an
agonizing end as it interacts with the
larger object. Discovered in 1994,
Sagittarius spirals around the Milky
Way’s poles, a hundred to a thousand
times less massive than our galaxy.

In 2018, scientists discovered a
warp in the disk of the Milky Way.
Large-scale distortions — collec-
tions of stars gravitationally shoved
together — are common among spiral
galaxies, and ours travels relatively
slowly around the disk. A warp can form due to
interactions within a galaxy, but the movement sug-
gests an external origin. “The only possible model
that can explain such large precession is interaction
with a satellite [galaxy],” says Poggio, who measured
and tracked the warp.

But who’s the culprit? While it’s possible that the
Milky Way’s warp was caused by the LMC, Poggio
thinks that the influence of Sagittarius might be
stronger, and she’s working to prove it. Confirming
her theory requires further simulations, which she is
in the process of analyzing.

MAR/APR 2022 . DISCOVER 63

OUT THERE

COLLISION SCENARIO has so far only clashed with Gaia Enceladus. “Since
FOR MILKY WAY AND then, there has been hardly anything,” says Marius
ANDROMEDA GALAXY Cautun, an astronomer at Leiden Observatory in
the Netherlands.
presence felt. Because it is so massive, not only is the THE FUTURE NASA/ESA/A. FEILD AND R. VAN DER MAREL/STSCI
LMC drawn to the Milky Way, but the Milky Way COLLISION path of In a 2019 paper, Cautun and his colleagues
itself is also pulled towards the LMC. A collection Andromeda and simulated how the upcoming collision with the
of material rather than a solid body, the Milky Way the Milky Way. LMC will change the Milky Way. The size of our
responds to the interaction differently in different Triangulum may galaxy’s black hole should grow up to eight times
regions. The inner halo and stellar disk are being also be part of the larger. Stars from the infalling galaxy, as well as
tugged by the LMC, while outer halo material does impending crash. those pulled from the Milky Way’s disk, should bulk
not move much. “It’s a total mess,” Belokurov says. up the stellar halo and metallicity. By the end of
Perhaps the crash, the Milky Way should be less unique and
Unlike Sagittarius, the LMC isn’t alone. In addi- the most more comparable to other galaxies.
tion to the SMC, the LMC appears to be bringing its well-known
own satellite galaxies. “Those satellites are coming collision in the Perhaps the most well-known collision in the
along for a ride,” says Ekta Patel, an astronomer at Milky Way’s Milky Way’s neighborhood has yet to happen. The
the University of California, Berkeley. Patel has stud- neighborhood massive Andromeda Galaxy, also known as M31,
ied several of the smaller galaxies of the Local Group has yet to will smash into us in about 4 billion years. Although
and found six that appear tied to the Magellanic happen. this event has long been suspected, it wasn’t until
Clouds — for now. The future collision between 2012 that scientists used NASA’s Hubble Space
the Milky Way and the LMC may cause them to Telescope to prove it by measuring the sideways
disconnect from the LMC. At that point, they may motion of Andromeda. By comparing previous
fall into the Milky Way along with the LMC, or they observations, scientists concluded that Andromeda
could wind up flying off on a new orbit. was moving straight towards us. Refined measure-
ments using the Gaia telescope now indicate that
Colliding with the LMC may make the Milky the smash-up will be slightly off-axis.
Way more like other spiral galaxies. Today, the
Milky Way has a supermassive black hole much “Whether it’s fully a head-on collision or more
smaller than the black holes of other similarly sized of a glancing blow doesn’t really affect the end
galaxies. The halo of stars surrounding the galaxy result,” says Roeland van der Marel, an astronomer
is lightweight and metal-poor. And the LMC is an at the Space Telescope Science Institute who led
unusually large satellite for similar spirals. All of the teams that took both measurements. That end
these are likely signs of the unusual quiet period our result will convert the two spiral galaxies into one
galaxy has gone through; most galaxies undergo spheroidal elliptical galaxy, empty of almost all of
more than one major merger, while the Milky Way its star-forming gas. The supermassive black holes
will spiral together, eventually becoming a single
monster in the heart of the new galaxy.

CRASH! BANG!
As the LMC and SMC orbit the Milky Way, they
are in the midst of their own tug-of-war. In 2012,
Gurtina Besla, of the University of Arizona, was
part of a team that modeled the results of a collision
between the LMC and SMC. Two years ago, another
team’s observations of massive, hot young stars
inside the pair confirmed their model — the two had
collided only a few hundred million years ago.

Prior to the 2000s, astronomers knew about
only a handful of satellites in the Milky Way’s
neighborhood. That changed with digital sky
surveys. Now we know of dozens of other, smaller
satellite galaxies tied to our own, many of which
are extremely faint. The arrival of the Gaia
telescope’s second data release allowed us to track
the motion of these satellites. “Gaia is amazing
because it allows us to track the motions of stars in

64 DISCOVERMAGAZINE .COM

the faintest known galaxies,” Patel says. “It’s a huge Although first approach towards galaxies roughly 10 times
game changer.” the Large larger than they are — is not as surprising as it
Magellanic seems, van der Marel says. Current understanding
With masses less than 10 percent of the Milky Cloud won’t of galaxy formation involves smaller things falling
Way, the tiny satellites are controlled by the stron- merge with into larger ones to build them up. He says it’s more
ger gravity of the larger galaxy. As stars are being us for another likely to find something relatively massive only
torn from the galaxies, they create stellar streams, 2 billion years, beginning to merge with its parent galaxy, rather
ribbons of stars that stretch across the sky. it is already than having orbited it several times over billions
making its of years. That’s because the large galaxies are more
Andromeda is also suffering its own ongoing presence felt. likely to be swallowed up over a few cycles.
collision. The Triangulum Galaxy, third largest
in the neighborhood, is currently falling into The dance of galaxies may take billions of years
Andromeda in much the same way the LMC is fall- to conclude, but it will eventually merge the Milky
ing into the Milky Way. Although radio telescopes Way and its neighbors into a single collection of
have done a good job of measuring the motion of stars. When the music stops, Andromeda, the
the smaller galaxy, Gaia was able to confirm those Milky Way, and all of their satellites will have lost
measurements, and provide a little more insight. their spiral and their young stars. All that will be
“It’s a little surprising, but it appears that the most left is the collection of aging stars in a dustless
consistent scenario with the observations is that galaxy, enjoying the silence of its golden years. D
Triangulum is falling into Andromeda for the very
first time,” says van der Marel, who used Gaia to Nola Taylor Tillman is a science journalist who focuses on
measure the motion of the smaller galaxy.
astronomy. She has written for publications such as Scientific
On reflection, however, the connection between
Triangulum and the LMC — both making their American, Science, and the BBC. She lives in Atlanta.

New Discovery! Dr. Bross All Natural Herbal Liquid Can Work Faster Than The Blue Pill

%ASY

#ScienceIRL

BY TIMOTHY MEINCH

THE SILVER LAKE, left, sank in 1900, near Sheboygan, Wisconsin;
the Vernon, above, succumbed to Lake Michigan storm waves in
1887. Both ships remain preserved at depths of 200-plus feet within
the new Wisconsin Shipwreck Coast National Marine Sanctuary.

FRESHWATER TREASURE of Lake Michigan that was Sanctuary status will
designated a U.S. National expand exploration oppor-
If you’ve sunk to the bottom of Lake Marine Sanctuary in mid- tunities for marine archae- CAPT. JITKA HANAKOVA/SHIPWRECK EXPLORERS (2)
Michigan in 1929. “Where 2021. It’s only the 15th such ologists and historians, as
never visited else on Earth do you have sanctuary in the country, well as recreational divers
North America’s more than 260 factory-fresh recognized by the National and dry-footed tourists.
Great Lakes, it’s automobiles preserved?” says Oceanic and Atmospheric Preliminary plans include
difficult to grasp their ocean- Christian Overland, CEO Administration (NOAA). building a visitor center,
like vastness. Even for those of the Wisconsin Historical The newly appointed swathe adding mooring buoys
who have, few can fathom the Society. “We have this amaz- of water along eastern above some shipwrecks and
trove of maritime artifacts ing underwater museum Wisconsin contains 36 iden- launching glass-bottom
scattered across their floors intact.” tified shipwrecks, most of boat tours. These tours, in
— including a shipment of them listed on the National partnership with NOAA,
some 260 Nash cars aboard Overland’s museum is Register of Historic Places; would float visitors above the
the Senator freighter, which a 962-square-mile section historical records show the murky remains of freshwater
area holds dozens of other schooners and paddle wheel-
unidentified sunken vessels, ers, like the 300-passenger
like unmarked graves. Niagara steamer, which
vanished beneath the waves
“They’ve been hidden, in 1856, just 1 mile off the
out of sight, out of mind,” Wisconsin shoreline. D
Overland says.

SCIENCE IN REAL LIFE

We want to see your awe-inspiring photos. Tag #ScienceIRL
and @Discover.Magazine on Instagram to share encounters

with science in your cities, nature, the arts and beyond.

DISCOVER Magazine (ISSN 0274-7529, USPS No. 555-190) is published bimonthly (January/February, March/April, May/June, July/August, September/October, November/December) by Kalmbach Media Co., 21027 Crossroads Circle, P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha, WI 53187.
Periodicals Postage is paid at Waukesha, WI and additional offices. Postmaster: Send address changes to Discover, PO Box 8520, Big Sandy, TX 75755. Canada Post Publication Mail Agreement #40010760. Back issues available. All rights reserved. Nothing herein contained
may be reproduced without written permission of Kalmbach Media Co., 21027 Crossroads Circle, P.O. Box 1612, Waukesha, WI 53187-1612. Printed in the U.S.A.



JOIN

THE MOST EXCLUSIVE TOURS
OF EGYPT EVER OFFERED

with the world’s most
eminent archaeologists

“No one can tour Egypt like they do” EGYPT TRAVEL

Dr. Zahi Hawass COLLECTION

WORLD’S MOST FAMOUS ARCHAEOLOGIST 2022/2023

“The best company to visit Egypt with” Discover the Land of the Pharaohs with the world’s most
famous archaeologist, Dr. Zahi Hawass, and Egypt’s Head
Dr. Jehan Sadat of Antiquities, Dr. Mostafa Waziri. Enrich your experience by
PHHWLQJ ZLWK UHQRZQHG VFKRODUV PXVHXP GLUHFWRUV KLJK SURȴOH
LATE FIRST LADY OF EGYPT ministers, and even members of a former president’s family.

“You will never forget these tours” You will have unparalleled access to Egypt’s greatest
monuments. Imagine having the Great Pyramid to yourself
Dr. Mostafa Waziri or standing between the paws of the Great Sphinx. Enjoy a
VIP tour of the Grand Egyptian Museum and a private visit to
EGYPT’S HEAD OF ANTIQUITIES the Valley of the Kings. These and other experiences typically

reserved for VIPs are now within your reach.

DON’T JUST VISIT EGYPT – EXPERIENCE IT! TOURS
STARTING AT
WITH ARCHAEOLOGICAL PATHS IT IS POSSIBLE.
$5,985
TOUR DATES AND MORE INFORMATION:
917-724-2772
www.archaeologicalpaths.com
[email protected]