Marcia Rieke's 'magical' South African adventure
A herd of elephants gathers at a water hold in Addo Elephant National Park outside of Port Elizabeth (the former name for the city now called Gqeberha) in South Africa.
Marcia Rieke
Renowned astronomer Marcia Rieke has returned from a memorable trip to Cape Town, South Africa, where she was honored with the prestigious Gruber Cosmology Award in recognition of her leading-edge work in infrared astronomy. A Regents Professor of astronomy in Steward Observatory, Rieke has led pioneering research that has enabled astronomers to explore and investigate the earliest galaxies in the universe. Her partnership with her husband, George Rieke, also a Regents Professor of astronomy, was instrumental in the design of the James Webb Telescope's Near Infrared Camera, or NIRCam.
In this Q&A, she shares memorable experiences from the trip that happened this August – everything from her close encounter with elephants and lions to the romantic candlelight setup in her accommodation that transported her back in time.
Can you tell us about the award and its significance to you?
The one thing I wish is that it had been shared with George, because the award was made to me, but he and I have always worked on things together, and particularly the design of NIRCam had a lot of his ideas in it. I view this as an award to both of us, and also an award to the James Webb Space Telescope project team. If, for some reason, that had not worked, nobody would care. There wouldn't be any of these awards and things.
George Rieke (left) and Marcia Rieke at the award celebration dinner that was held at Siba Restaurant in Cape Town, South Africa.
Marcia Rieke
Can you describe your Cape Town experience?
This was our second time to South Africa, but the first time in Cape Town. The trip was almost two weeks. George and I stayed in the same lodge where we stayed in 2004. In addition to the celebrations, we had a chance to go to a dinner show where the food was from a variety of different African countries. The show part was people illustrating African drumming and dances, wearing native costumes. That was a lot of fun and gave more sense of what the genuine native culture was like.
What was the highlight of the trip?
We stayed at a lodge about 400 miles east of Cape Town, a little bit north of Port Elizabeth (the former name for the city now called Gqeberha). There's an old farmhouse with a water hole where all the animals would come, and there's no fence between you and the animals. You get this view sitting on the veranda where they serve breakfast and lunch. The elephants were about 80 feet away, and occasionally, an elephant would come up closer and eat some of the grass. They were totally non-aggressive. I think it's because there's never been any hunting associated with this particular place. One morning, lions showed up to the water hole, which might start making you nervous, but they paid no attention to the people. They were just coming to drink water.
How did it feel to revisit the same lodge 20 years later with your husband?
What was remarkable was that the lodge itself had hardly changed. The water hole was the same. The individual lodge rooms are actually these kind of glamping tents. One thing that had changed: When we were there the first time in 2004, the doors zipped up and were a little bit hard to close. Now they had sliding doors, which was much easier. But that's almost all that changed. The meal schedule, going out on drives through the park to see other wildlife and scenery, and the food – all of that was just as good as before. It was really quite magical.
Has the lodge been intentionally preserved?
Yes, it has been. In fact, the main house at night is lit mostly by candlelight, because there isn't electricity wiring all the way through it. The tents where you stay have full electricity and wireless. But the main house at night is really quite beautiful with these candlelit rooms with kind of 1900-style furniture and a fireplace.
The interior view of a lodge at Gorah Elephant Camp in Addo National Park where Marcia Rieke stayed.
Marcia Rieke
Can you share anything about the lecture you gave as part of the ceremony?
I gave a lecture on infrared observations of very distant galaxies and how that changed over time. I spoke about what it was like to observe what we thought of as distant galaxies back when I was a postdoc around 1980 and how we do it now. It's, of course, hugely different, and we can see much, much further away now. The field has seen remarkable progress over that period of time.
When I first started observing the most distant galaxies known at the time, I was using equipment that had a single pixel. You would arrange things so there was a circular aperture or hole that the light went through, and that single pixel recorded all the light that came through that hole. They had to point very carefully. Now we have NIRCam on James Webb Space Telescope, which has 40 megapixels. So that gives you a sense of the progress in astronomy and infrared astronomy from 1980 to now. It's pretty amazing.