Dr.
John C. Mather
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Astrophysicist; Government research agency staff member
Area
Mathematical and Physical Sciences
Specialty
Astronomy, Astrophysics, and Earth Sciences
Elected
1998
The senior project scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope, the planned successor to the Hubble Space Telescope. Interested in space telescopes and instrumentation as well as the astronomy they enable. Was the project scientist and one of 3 principal investigators for the COBE, the Cosmic Background Explorer satellite, which measured the spectrum and spatial fluctuations of the cosmic microwave background radiation, and discovered the excess background radiation at both near and far infrared wavelengths, due to unknown sources. Received the Nobel Prize, physics, 2006 for this work. Frequent public lecturer on cosmology and astronomy.
Last Updated