So when I went there, I was actually
going to visit a new set of telescopes.
They're called SPECULOOS-- Speculoos, like the cookie.
And the same astronomers who did the TRAPPIST
telescopes that discovered the planets orbiting a dwarf star
that--
the right amount of distance for life
to perhaps exist, right, just close enough to their star
that water could exist.
So they had made this discovery.
They had found it because of eclipses,
which is sort of amazing.
And I was very fascinated by them.
So I wrote to them.
And anyway, I got myself invited down
to the new telescopes, SPECULOOS.
And the four telescopes that are part of the SPECULOOS group
are all named for Jupiter's moons.
SPECULOOS itself is the search for habitable planets eclipsing
ultracool stars or SPECULOOS.
The telescopes at Cerro Paranal near Antofagasta,
each telescope is named after a moon of Jupiter--
Callisto, Europa, Ganymede, and Io.
And Speculoos are also these Belgian cookies.
They have a hint of cinnamon.
No data.
[LAUGHTER]
The team that runs the telescopes
is from the University of Liege.
And I have poems for each of the telescopes,
but I'm going to read the first one, Callisto.
Callisto was one of those virgin huntresses
sworn to celibate retreat.
For her, Jove disguised himself as a virgin
huntress too, voluptuous and armed.
Then he took her by surprise.
Callisto, the most heavily cratered object
in the solar system, so says NASA.
In the story, the trouble is Jove's wife, wrathy Juno,
who uglies Callisto into a bear, all clumsy slobber, claws
and grunts.
And then, to save her from a huntsman's coming arrow,
Jove must hurl her into the sky, not merely moon.
She's also Ursa Major and an asteroid--
204 Kallisto with a K. In fact, tomorrow,
according to inthesky.org, I'll see that asteroid from my own
celibate retreat--
the patio-- before it's lost to dawn twilight around 5:43,
37 degrees above your southern horizon.
I didn't have to tell them where I am.
The web is like the gods.
They see me sitting here-- latitude, north, 33
degrees, et cetera.
And longitude, west, 111 degrees, et cetera.
And even altitude, so an Olympian 415 meters.
I would not let her be a human being,
Juno says, in fury at herself.
What is she now?
A goddess, Juno says.
Yeah, with three dominions, as moon,
as dipper bear, and asteroid to boot.
Then too, Callisto is encryption tech
for victims of sexual assault, hosting an incident list
where women report what happened then also match with others
harmed by the same perpetrator.
All the moons and more deny Alcmena, Cassiopeia, Leda.
And she is a video game--
Callisto Protocol-- and bars in Arkansas and Texas--
classic cocktails-- a publisher of books
on the history of graphic design, an herbicide
controlling broad leaf weeds in fields of corn, okra, sorghum,
sugarcane.
The net ensnares and it unsettles.
I say that as if it had a mind and were decisive.
Though I know the way it dissipates
intent, like ones and zeros, like the girl Jove was just
long enough to get Callisto's mother's
maiden name, her favorite color, and first pet,
you know, to put her at her ease.