Should we decolonize astronomy? – Around the question, the magazine of all sciences

2024-04-30 10:49:29

The largest observatories in the sky are built on indigenous lands. In Hawaii, it is on Mona Kéa, the sacred mountain of the Hawaiians, except that they are now mobilizing against the construction of a new giant telescope. Investigation into the contested lands of astronomy…

Let us ask ourselves how to share the sky from Earth?

A sensitive question for all those who like to observe the stars, the planets and the sublime celestial vault… Except that on a completely different scale – when it comes to gigantic observatories equipped with giant telescopes with multiple mirrors turned towards the sky to make cutting-edge cosmology and astronomy – the choice of location is not trivial. It is on the highest plateaus and peaks in the world, in isolated virgin and open places which are most often indigenous territories, that the large observatories and telescopes are installed…

This is the case in Hawaii on Mona Kea, the sacred mountain of the native Hawaiians. This volcano, the highest point in the Pacific with its 4,207 meters of altitude, is also a unique place for astronomers of the 20th and 21st centuries, who have installed their largest observatories there. Except that in 2019, the Hawaiian population said no and mobilized in numbers against the construction of a new giant telescope. Why and how did this magical mountain for Hawaiians, as for scientists, become a place of confrontation?

With Pascal Marichalarsociologist and historian at the CNRS, graduate in Astronomy at the Paris Observatory for his work The mountain of stars: investigation into the contested lands of astronomypublished by La Découverte.