Recently the Star-Advertiser printed commentaries on why Mauna Kea is sacred to some Hawaiians (“Understanding what sacred means on Mauna Kea,” Star-Advertiser, Island Voices, Oct. 3).

Your readers have an equal right to know why astronomy is the world’s sacred science. For 5,000 years, priest- astronomers studied the stars on the summits of sacred mountains. Until 500 years ago, astronomy was part of religion throughout the world. With the invention of the telescope, astronomers transcended religious dogma and started answering with observable facts the cosmological questions people had always asked.

Profound knowledge of the universe has come from the Mauna Kea telescopes, and knowledge is never desecration. The Star-Advertiser has printed several letters from Mauna Kea astronomers who expressed their reverence for the mountain and acknowledged the deep philosophical nature of the work they do. These scientists are not desecrators, they are engaged in the highest human quest for understanding of the universe.

If Hawaiian activists are allowed to ruin astronomy on Mauna Kea with religious name-calling, their suppression of the knowledge that flows from the Mauna Kea telescopes will be a true desecration of the human spirit.

Elizabeth Novak

Pahoa, Hawaii island

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