At the heart of this engaging book is the author’s claim that an emerging transatlantic print culture contributed to a distinct set of disciplinary practices constitutive of the “new astronomy.” Using the public interest around Mars observations between 1860 and 1910, with all its related controversies, Joshua Nall adroitly examines the role of mass media in astronomy’s disciplinary formation at a time when astronomy was in a state of flux. Refusing to take for granted the history of these formations, he does not assume what would later become more established astronomical identities like the amateur and professional. Rather, by appreciating their fluidity, the author is able to place astronomers like Richard Proctor, William Pickering, and Percival Lowell into contexts that enrich our appreciation of the period’s practices, personae, and what counted as astronomical labour. Standing between a lively introduction and a stimulating conclusion, News from Mars is composed of four chapters that move us from Great Britain to the United States in a chronological order. Chapter 1 foregrounds Richard Proctor’s “imaginative astronomy” by setting it against two competing views about astronomy: positional and physical. Proctor’s alternative prominently featured speculation and democratization of knowledge, utilizing anti-elitist science journalism for the moral betterment of the masses. This populist attitude happened to go hand-in-glove with the ongoing Americanization of the British newspaper industry, particularly in the person of William Thomas Stead, editor of London’s Pall Mall Gazette and steady supporter of Proctor. Chapter 2 argues that America’s growing dominance in astrophysics had more to do with geography than high-cost massive telescopes. As observatories moved westward and onto mountain tops, the more did their remote locality became central to their authority. But their locality demanded new disciplinary practices that relied heavily on communications technologies and fast-moving media, connecting news agencies like the Associated Press to “frontier” observatories that came to resemble news distribution centres, serially shaping astronomical news in turn. Chapter 3 takes as its case study William Pickering’s relationship to the New York Herald on two Harvard Observatory expeditions in order to elucidate another novel disciplinary practice, “event astronomy.” Underwriting the expenses for a 3000-mile telegraph line, with its own dedicated time-signal, that ran from Pickering’s temporary station in Willows, California, all the way to the Manhattan offices of the Herald, the newspaper published first-person, near-real-time reports about the eclipse event of 1889. 921992 JHA0010.1177/0021828620921992Journal for the History of AstronomyBook Review book-review2020

中文翻译：

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报纸天文学家

这本引人入胜的书的核心是作者声称新兴的跨大西洋印刷文化对构成“新天文学”的一套独特的学科实践做出了贡献。Joshua Nall 利用 1860 年至 1910 年间围绕火星观测的公众兴趣及其所有相关争议，巧妙地研究了大众媒体在天文学处于不断变化的时期内在天文学学科形成中的作用。拒绝将这些地层的历史视为理所当然，他不假设后来成为更成熟的天文身份，如业余和专业。相反，通过欣赏它们的流动性，作者能够将理查德·普罗克特、威廉·皮克林和珀西瓦尔·洛厄尔等天文学家置于丰富我们对该时期实践、人物、以及所谓的天文劳动。介于生动的介绍和激动人心的结论之间，来自火星的消息由四章组成，按时间顺序将我们从英国带到美国。第 1 章突出了理查德普罗克特的“想象天文学”，将其与关于天文学的两种相互竞争的观点进行对比：位置和物理。普罗克特的替代方案突出地突出了知识的投机和民主化，利用反精英主义的科学新闻来改善大众的道德。这种民粹主义态度恰好与英国报业正在进行的美国化密切相关，特别是在威廉·托马斯·斯特德 (William Thomas Stead) 的身上，他是伦敦 Pall Mall Gazette 的编辑和 Proctor 的坚定支持者。第 2 章认为，美国在天体物理学方面日益增长的主导地位更多地与地理有关，而不是高成本的大型望远镜。随着天文台向西移动并登上山顶，他们的偏远地区越来越成为他们权威的中心。但他们所在的地区需要新的纪律做法，这些做法严重依赖通信技术和快速发展的媒体，将美联社等新闻机构与类似新闻发布中心的“前沿”天文台联系起来，依次形成天文新闻。第 3 章以威廉·皮克林在两次哈佛天文台探险中与《纽约先驱报》的关系作为案例研究，以阐明另一种新颖的学科实践，即“事件天文学”。承保一条 3000 英里电报线路的费用，有自己的专用时间信号，