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Date: 9/2/2021
SOUTH HADLEY – A Mount Holyoke professor is making history as part of a NASA team researching and exploring the surface of the planet Venus.
Astronomy professor Darby Dyar said she didn’t always envision herself researching planets. “Weirdly enough my PHD is in geochemistry, I’m a geologist by trade. As a grad student I worked on lunar samples in the early 80s, that got me interested in things,” she said.
Dyar said working on the samples got her thinking about the surfaces of various planets, what they looked like and how they were different or similar to those on Earth. “We know what a volcano looks like on Earth, to think about what those look like on other places in the solar system – I find that mind blowing,” she said.
Dyar will serve as the deputy principal investigator for the Venus Emissivity, Radio Science, InSAR, Topography, and Spectroscopy (VERITAS) mission, led and funded by NASA. According to the NASA website, the mission “…will use a set of specially designed instruments and radars to fully map the surface of Venus in high definition.” The development of a map, as explained by NASA, “…will allow scientists to understand Venus’ past, present and future tectonic, geologic, volcanic, interior and chemical history.”
While she is excited about VERITAS, Dyar said this is just one of many projects she’s partnered with NASA on over the course of her career. She said she’d been working with and for NASA for “25 years now, not including my PHD.” She explained that after graduating with her PHD, she initially became a professor at the University of Oregon in the 80s, but “couldn’t stay away from planetary science.”
“Every time I wondered about the parallels happening on Mars,” she said. It was in 2000 she said she became “interested in meteors on Mars” and became involved with the Mars Science Laboratory team. Dyar said it was “fun to be part of that mission,” as it was so loved by the public. Nowadays, she said her research, alongside her teaching at Mount Holyoke, was divided between Mars and Venus.
“Now more than half of my research is about Venus. I divide my research between Mars and Venus,” she said. Dyar laughed as she recalled her earlier research days when her children were younger. She explained she’d sign birthday cards with the phrase ‘I love you to blank and back’ and fill in the blank with the planet she was researching at the time of the child’s birthday.
Dyar said she’d been interested in researching Venus for a very long time but was used to waiting patiently for her research to be funded. “It’s unbelievable, as a scientist, people aren’t aware of how much time you spend coming up with ideas and pitching them to get them supported. To get this pitched for 12 straight years and not be successful is no big deal,” she said. “You get used to having a great idea and have NASA say no.”
Thankfully, she said the project was “funded for the next 12 to 16 years at least.” Dyar said this would allow her to work on the mission in preparation for VERITAS collecting data from the planet as well as working on research after the mission returns.
Dyar said while the mission had many facets, the research collected and analyzed from VERITAS had many benefits and could lead to breakthroughs on Earth with regard to global warming. “One thing we hope to accomplish is to understand how long there was liquid water on the surface of Venus. It’s important because to me one of the most fundamental questions of human beings is are we alone,” she explained. “So if it turns out planet Venus had 3 billion years of water – if that’s what we confirm with the mission – it says we might not be alone.” She went on to say that while it would “obviously not be advanced life,” the discovery could lead to further research and discoveries on future missions.
Another advantage that may come from studying the atmosphere and landscape of Venus, Dyar explained, was a better understanding of how to combat climate change on Earth. “Venus is a challenge because it’s completely covered with clouds. It has a runaway greenhouse effect, just like on earth,” she said, explaining that gasses “can’t quite get out” of Venus’ atmosphere due to the planet being closer to the sun than Earth.
“This helps us understand the process by which one day Earth may become uninhabitable. We can understand the process of global warming very well by studying Venus,” she said. “It’s sobering when you see pictures of this barren landscape and think about it. It’s like science fiction to think about that being a possible future for Earth.”
Dyar said it would also just be as rewarding to learn about the planet that has been an object of fascination for centuries. “Since ancient civilization, Venus is the bright object in the night sky. It has been the subject of curiosity for eons. It’s neat that we’re going there and answering some of these questions,” she said. “The idea we’ll know more about this interesting star in the sky is pretty cool.”
She added she was excited to see the first map of Venus’ surface. “The thing I will remember most probably is the first map of the composition. The geology of Venus is going to be a pretty cool thing,” she said.
Her commitment and sense of responsibility to science extends beyond her research at NASA, however, and into the classroom at Mount Holyoke. “I love teaching, this fall I’m teaching a big intro class that’s a cross-section. Twenty-five percent of the first year class is taking my class. I love that, I particularly love it because as a scientist I have grave concerns about the scientific literacy of the general public,” she said, explaining she felt a responsibility to model what a scientist could look like.
“When I went to college, I never met a woman scientist. I never had a role model for what that looks like. The most important people I teach aren’t my science students, but students who need to be exposed to a woman who is a scientist and a mom. It’s important to develop an understanding of science, to think critically about it and respect science.”
Dyar said while the research for VERITAS was exciting and important, what she valued most about the mission and her work at NASA, though, is the people she met along the way. “I’ve just made such good friends along the way. The team of people I work with is top notch,” she said.
This, she explained, was true of her time and colleagues at Mount Holyoke as well. “When I was a graduate student I never imagined I could have people to work with that were the same. The fact that I can work with other people like me is really amazing,” she said. “To people in the valley who think the university is the only one who does really good research, look at what we’ve been able to accomplish: world class research and discoveries.”
She went on to say that as her research takes her into the next decade of life, she’s begun to think about how she will divide her time as she nears retirement from teaching. “People who know me will answer that by saying I work all the time. I will say I’m passionate about what I do, I don’t work all the time,” she said, laughing. Dyar went on to say she enjoys quite a few hobbies outside of her passion for planetary geology including being a master rower and hiking.
She reflected on her work and said it had taken “a lot of perseverance.” Dyar said, “A lot of red eye flights. I wish I had a nickel for every red eye I’ve taken to teach my class, or the reverse to get to California for a meeting the next day.”
Persistence, Dyar said, was important when pursuing a field such as astrology. “The number one thing is, persistence matters. My generation is still a male dominated generation, but one of the most important things I do is turn around and give a hand up to the generation behind me,” she said. This, Dyar explained, was what she expects of her students as well. “I will help them, [but] I expect them to turn around and give someone else a hand.”
She continued, “Having someone to talk to about the joys and challenges of your career is important. I had no women to lean on, I had some strong mentors that were male.”
Dyar said she encourages people of all fields and skill sets to pursue astrology if they’re interested. “I had the mistaken notion that you had to be really good at math. That’s not true, science requires all kinds of brains,” she said. “We need artists to help make scientific concepts relatable. There’s room in science and STEM in general for all kinds of talents. I’m a highly visual person and artist, I can see things in three-dimension, I can see things on plants and visually. STEM takes on a whole set of tools. Don’t count yourself out because you got a B in Calculus or didn’t pass.”