Perceiving other planets

bodily experience, interpretation, and the mars orbiter camera

Robert Rosenberger

pp. 63-75

in: Human Studies 31 (1), 2008.

Abstract

An emerging philosophical perspective called "postphenomenology," which offers reflection upon human relations to technology, has the potential to increase our understanding of the functions performed by imaging technologies in scientific practice. In what follows, I review some relevant insights and expand them for use in the concrete analysis of practices of image interpretation in science. As a guiding example, I explore how these insights bear upon a contemporary debate in space science over images of the fossilized remains of a river delta on the surface of Mars. These considerations include an analysis of the ways that the objects of study are transformed by the mediating imaging technologies, such as the Mars Orbiter Camera.