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| Viewing the Universe with Infrared Eyes: The Spitzer Space Telescope |
| Dr Giovanni Fazio |
| Thursday, Mar 10, 2011 at 8:00 PM |
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| The Spitzer Space Telescope, launched in August 2003, is producing an
exciting new view of the Universe seen in infrared light, allowing astronomers to see regions of space invisible to optical telescopes. Spitzer's scientific results include the study of the formation and evolution of galaxies in the early Universe, understanding energy sources in ultra-luminous galaxies, the study of star formation and evolution, observations of exoplanets and their atmospheres, and determining the structure and evolution of planetary disks around nearby stars. After a brief description of the Spitzer mission, results from Spitzer's extragalactic and galactic observational programs will be presented, showing many of Spitzer’s very spectacular images.
Speaker Bio
Dr. Giovanni Fazio is presently Senior Physicist, Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics; Lecturer, Astronomy Department, Harvard University; and a Faculty Member, International Space University, Strasbourg, France. He received BS (Physics) and BA (Chemistry) degrees from St. Mary's University, Texas, and a Ph.D. (Physics) from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Early in his career he pioneered the development of gamma-ray astronomy using balloon-borne telescopes, and ground-based detectors. He then lead the development of large balloon-borne telescopes for far-infrared astronomical observations above the atmosphere, as Principal Investigator for the 1-Meter Balloon-Borne Far-Infrared Telescope and also the first infrared astronomical telescope to fly on the Spacelab II flight of the Space Shuttle. In 1984 he was selected as Principal Investigator for the Infrared Array Camera (IRAC) experiment on the Spitzer Space Telescope, one of NASA's Great Observatories. Dr. Fazio was also a Co-Investigator on the Sub-millimeter Wave Astronomical Satellite. His current research interests include the development of infrared instrumentation and the use of infrared array cameras on ground-based and space telescopes to observe galaxy formation and evolution in the early Universe, ultra-luminous galaxies, star formation and evolution, and brown dwarfs.
Dr. Fazio is a Fellow of the American Physical Society and past chairman of its Astrophysics Division, a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), and a Fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society . He is a member of the American Astronomical Society and past chairman of its High Energy Astrophysics Division, and is a member of numerous other scientific organizations. Dr. Fazio has received a number of special awards: five NASA Group Achievement Awards; Russia’s Tsiolkovsky Medal; the UNICO National Marconi Science Medal; the NASA Public Service Medal; the Royal Society of London/COSPAR Massey Award (Gold Medal); the Smithsonian Institution Secretary’s Distinguished Research Lecture Award; and the Astronomical Society of the Pacific’s Muhlman Award to the Spitzer Space Telescope Team.
Please join us for a pre-meeting dinner discussion at Changsho, 1712 Mass Ave, Cambridge, MA at 6:00pm before the meeting. |
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