Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland 20771

ENGINEERING COLLOQUIUM

Monday, February 13, 2006 / 3:30 PM, Building 3 Auditorium

credit: Northrop Grumman Space Technology

John Mather

"Large Space-Based Telescopes"

ABSTRACT -- There are many concepts for large space-based telescopes, with sites ranging from low Earth orbit to Jupiter's Lagrange Point, and objectives ranging from observing the first light objects to planet finding and the examination of black holes. I will summarize the concepts, objectives, site selection criteria, and technical challenges, and I will read the crystal ball and predict the future history of space astronomy.

SPEAKER -- Dr. John C. Mather is a Senior Astrophysicist in the Observational Cosmology Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center. His research centers on infrared astronomy and cosmology. As an NRC postdoctoral fellow at the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (New York City), he led the proposal efforts for the Cosmic Background Explorer (74-76), and came to GSFC to be the Study Scientist (76-88), Project Scientist (88-98), and also the Principal Investigator for the Far IR Absolute Spectrophotometer (FIRAS) on COBE. He showed that the cosmic microwave background radiation has a blackbody spectrum within 50 ppm. As Senior Project Scientist (95-present) for the James Webb Space Telescope, he leads the science team, and represents scientific interests within the project management. He has served on advisory and working groups for the National Academy of Sciences, NASA, the NSF (for the ALMA, the Atacama Large Millimeter Array), and the Center for Astrophysical Research in the Antarctic. He is the recipient of many awards, including the National Air and Space Museum Trophy, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics Space Science Award, the Aviation Week and Space Technology laurels, the Dannie Heineman Prize of the American Astronomical Society, the John Scott Award from the city of Philadelphia, the Rumford Prize of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the Benjamin Franklin Medal in Physics from the Franklin Institute, and the George W. Goddard award of the Society of Photo-optical Instrumentation Engineers. He is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Astronomical Society, the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, and the Society of Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers.