Early 2000, Phil Plait wrote his first book, bad astronomy, which debunked conspiracy theories and fallacies, such as the idea that NASA faked the moon landings in the 1970s or that planetary alignments can affect life on Earth. Twenty years later, she continues her quest to overturn astronomical misconceptions while sharing her love of the cosmos. An astronomer and science writer, Plait has spent his career sharing space news and explaining complex concepts to the public through his and his popular blog. Newsletterboth called Bad Astronomy.
In his new book, under alien skies, on sale today, Plait brings his usual curiosity and humor to explore 10 fascinating places in our solar system and beyond. Plait delves into the science – and science fiction – of these space destinations, going beyond what telescopes and space photography can tell us about these strange worlds and what it would actually be like to visit them in person.
This conversation has been edited for length and clarity.
WIRED: I always wanted to ask you. Why do you call yourself the Bad Astronomer?
Phil Braid: It’s because when I started writing on the web, and we’re talking about 1993 here, I started writing about misconceptions in astronomy. Over time I started calling that “bad astronomy”, and someone started calling me a “bad astronomer” on the bulletin boards around then. I thought it was funny, and the name stuck.
You have referred to yourself as a “scientific skeptic”. Can you explain what you mean by that?
Scientific skepticism, what a lot of people call “critical thinking,” which is probably better, basically says, “Okay, here’s a claim, and here’s the evidence. Does the evidence support the claim, or is something else at play? Is there evidence that they don’t show me? Is the claim a logical conclusion from that evidence? Is there a way to falsify this claim? Is there any evidence that does not support it? And are there any other ideas that might work better?”
And that is what the scientific process is. That’s something I think is sorely needed these days. There are so many people making claims about climate change, about vaccines, about guns. The fact that people uncritically accept claims made by people they trust is not a good thing.
What was your motivation to write? under alien skies?
Getting people interested in astronomy isn’t that hard: “Look at this beautiful image of a galaxy. Isn’t it amazing?
And then I started getting this question. [about images from space]: “What would this be like if you were there? Sure, there’s this Hubble image, but if you were actually floating in space, on Saturn or next to this cloud of gas, would it be In fact does it look like that?”
Many times the answer would be, “Yes.” If you are floating on the moon, the view would be like what you are seeing from these satellites. But when it comes to gas clouds and galaxies and some other things, especially now with the James Webb Space Telescopethe answer is: “No, it wouldn’t look like it at all.”
I started to think: What would it look like if you were actually in a gas cloud? It turns out that the answer is complicated. I decided to launch an article for Astronomy magazine, basically covering three different scenarios, and I wrote it, and it was a popular item. I thought: You know, this would be a good book! And boom, only 25 years later, I decided to finally write it.