A Conversation With Harvard-Smithsonian Astrophysicist Jonathan McDowell

By Story Preservation Initiative on February 25, 2013

Jonathan McDowell

What follows is taken from Jonathan’s self-described “Stuffy Biographical Summary.”

Dr. Jonathan McDowell is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA. A staff member of the Chandra X-ray Center, he studies black holes, quasars and X-ray sources in galaxies, as well as developing data analysis software for the X-ray astronomy community. Dr. McDowell has a B.A in Mathematics (1981) and a Ph.D in Astrophysics (1986) from the University of Cambridge, England, and has previously worked at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, the Jodrell Bank radio observatory and NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center.

The asteroid (4589) McDowell was named after him in 1993.

In our upcoming conversation, Jonathan will guide me (with a great deal of patience, I might add) and, ultimately you, through subjects that skirt the outer boundaries of human understanding.  Such things as what we have recently come to know about the universe, what these findings mean, and what we are seeking to discover.

We will touch on various subjects ranging from the history – and future – of the space program, to the search for black holes and understanding why we all are, in fact, made of stardust.

Jonathan will kindly walk me through the paces at the Harvard Observatory and I will have the distinct pleasure of viewing an exhibit of Jonathan’s photos of deep space.

Take a look “Behind the Science” 

http://www.mnh.si.edu/exhibits/evolving-universe/science/prism.html

To listen to Jonathan, click on links below: 

https://storypreservation.files.wordpress.com/2013/02/01-track-01-intro-to-recording.mp3

Copyright Story Preservation Initiative 2012.  All rights reserved.

 

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Orion – A Star is Born, photo courtesy The Evolving Universe / Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

The Observable Universe – photo courtesy The Evolving Universe / Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

The Helix Nebula, Star Death – photo courtesy The Evolving Universe / Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

The Layout of the Galaxy – photo courtesy The Evolving Universe / Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History and the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

Categories: In the Classroom, Listen, Scientists, Space

Tags: Black Holes, Harvard, Harvard-Smithsonian Observatory, Jonathan McDowell, Origin of the Universe, Smithsonian, Space, space research, Spectrography