Fairborn Observatory lies tucked away on the east side of the Patagonia mountains. It is not open to the public, but very open to the deep bowl of the night sky. Named after the Ohio hometown of the founder, Russell Genet, his first home in Fairborn was among the Mount Hopkins astronomical facilities. In 1996, the observatory acquired remote property within the Coronado National Forest and began building a tiny observatory, which is managed by Lou Boyd, an inventor, builder and caretaker of the facility.
The observatory is run by the Automated Astronomy Group at Tennessee State Univ. and is part of a research group with the Univ. of Hawaii, and the Univ. of California at Berkeley. Other funding sources include NASA and the National Science Foundation.
Fairborn’s innovative contribution to world astronomy has been the advancement of robotically operated telescopes and the interface for transmitting data to computer networks for analysis.
There are two types of telescopes at the observatory. Most are spectroscopic telescopes that split apart incoming information radiating from the target object in the way a glass prism splits a visible beam of light. These telescopes turn a broad range of electromagnetic wavelengths into data ready for analysis. The remaining telescopes are imaging telescopes, which pass visible light through lenses, to produce digital imagery.
Fairborn’s specialty is in aiding the discovery of “exoplanets,” bodies which orbit suns other than our own. When certified, these discoveries are contributions to NASA’s archive, which listed 3605 exoplanets, within 634 multi-planet systems, as of November 15 2018.
Most of the exoplanets Fairborn helps to find are within the Milky Way, our home galaxy. The closest exoplanet currently known is 4.4 light years away.If a spaceship could travel at the speed of light, it would take 4.4 years to reach it. But at the 18,000-mph speed of the International Space Station, it would take explorers about 205,000 years to reach the closest exoplanet.
Exoplanets can be very different from Earth. One exoplanet thatFairborn’s data helped confirm, for example, is said to have an “ultra-short period,” since it orbits its sun in about nine hours. Another discovery byFairborn in 2017 was the sudden and repeated dimming of a star in the constellation Cygnus which has astronomers abuzz with possible explanations. A third planetary system causing a stir in the exoplanet community is called theTrappist-1 system, which is 39 light years away. It has a cooler sun than ours, and seven planets orbit it closer than our neighbor Mercury. These are ‘rocky’ planets rather than gaseous ones, and it is believed that at least three of them have liquid water, and thus might have life-supporting conditions.
Exoplanet researchers seek planets in the “the Goldilocks zone,” that sweet spot in the cosmos where the planet’s sun is not too hot and not too cold, and evidence other conditions that might favor the evolution of life.This research might help find other habitats conducive for life in the universe. Because of its findings, Fairborn is a respected contributor to the search for extraterrestrial life and intelligence. As a next step, researchers worldwide are eager to see whether two instruments now under construction will be able to detect “biosignatures,” such as gases in a planet’s atmosphere that are formed by living creatures.
The future of Fairborn Observatory could theoretically be at risk from increased mining activity in the Patagonia Mountains. South32’s total claimed area is about 27 square miles, running almost ten miles in north-to-south in the mountains, some of the claims being very close to Fairborn’s property.
Possible disturbances from mining include atmospheric pollution from dust caused by excavation and blasting, vibrations, vehicle emissions and light pollution. Both types of telescopes at the observatory analyze visible light and are thus susceptible to light pollution
Patagonia astronomer Michael Schwartz points out that despite a County ordinance, light pollution is little regulated in this area. Schwartz observes that “Arizonans are losing a precious resource, access to a clear sky, one of the few wonders that remains free.”