Grant Tremblay

Last updated
Grant R. Tremblay
Grant Tremblay at Paranal Observatory.jpg
Born (1984-03-13) March 13, 1984 (age 40)
NationalityAmerican
EducationPh.D. Astrophysics, Rochester Institute of Technology, University of Rochester, Johns Hopkins University, Yale University
OccupationAstrophysicist
Employer Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics
Website www.granttremblay.com

Grant Tremblay (born March 13, 1984) is an American astrophysicist notable for research on supermassive black holes, science communication, and public advocacy for large space telescopes. He is currently an Astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, [1] and was formerly a NASA Einstein Fellow at Yale University, [2] a Fellow at the European Southern Observatory (ESO), and an Astronomer at ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT).

Contents

As of 2022, Tremblay is Vice President of the American Astronomical Society, [3] a member of the NASA Astrophysics Advisory Committee, [4] and chair of the executive committee for NASA's Physics of the Cosmos Program Analysis Group (PhysPAG). [5] He is an author on more than 100 peer-reviewed publications on star formation and supermassive black holes [6] as well as books for the general public including Light from the Void: Twenty Years of Discovery with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory [7] and What do Black Holes Eat for Dinner?. [8] [9]

Tremblay has appeared as a main cast member on various science documentary series including How the Universe Works, [10] and has given numerous presentations at universities, schools, and science festivals. He is head of the Lynx X-ray Observatory Science Study Office, and is a public advocate [11] for a new fleet of Great Observatories following release of the 2020 Decadal Survey in Astronomy and Astrophysics. In 2020 he founded the New Great Observatories community coalition to advocate for that fleet amongst stakeholders, U.S. policymakers, and the global public. [12] [13]

Early life and education

Tremblay was born in Brunswick, Maine, and graduated from Brunswick High School in 2002. His interest in astronomy and astrophysics was triggered by the 1994 Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 impact of Jupiter, and by using a small telescope in his backyard while growing up in Maine. [14] He obtained his Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and Astronomy from the University of Rochester in 2006, and received his Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.) in Astrophysics from the Rochester Institute of Technology in 2011, [15] where his thesis work was conducted in collaboration with the Johns Hopkins University and the Space Telescope Science Institute. His Doctoral advisors were Stefi Baum and Christopher O'Dea, and his Ph.D. Thesis was titled "Feedback Regulated Star Formation in Cool Core Clusters of Galaxies". [16]

Career and research

Following receipt of his doctoral degree, Tremblay was a European Southern Observatory (ESO) Fellow in Garching, Germany and an Astronomer at ESO's Paranal Observatory in the Atacama Desert of Chile (from 2011 through 2014). He was then a NASA Einstein Fellow [2] at Yale University, working with Meg Urry.

In 2016, Tremblay and collaborators published a paper in the journal Nature reporting Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA) observations of cold molecular gas clouds falling toward a supermassive black hole in the brightest cluster galaxy of Abell 2597, a well known cool core cluster of galaxies. [17] The result received widespread media coverage. [18] Tremblay was also involved in the discovery of a possible runaway black hole [19] as well as the oldest black hole ever discovered. [20]

As of 2023, Tremblay works at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, where he is the head of the Lynx X-ray Observatory science support office and supports flight operations for the Chandra X-ray Observatory. [1] In 2021, he was elected Vice President of the American Astronomical Society (for a 2022–2025 term). [3] He is also a special government employee advising NASA's Astrophysics Division as part of the NASA Astrophysics Advisory Committee.

Selected publications

Tremblay is an author on more than 100 peer-reviewed publications in academic journals such as The Astrophysical Journal, Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Nature, and Astronomy & Astrophysics, and he frequently collaborates with astronomers such as Françoise Combes, Andrew Fabian, and Megan Donahue.

Selected publications include:

Public engagement and advocacy

Tremblay is also involved in science communication and outreach. He is the author of two books for the general public (Light from the Void: Twenty Years of Discovery with NASA's Chandra X-ray Observatory [7] and What do Black Holes Eat for Dinner?. [8] [9] ), and has appeared as a cast member on various documentary series about space and the universe, including Discovery and Science Channel 's How the Universe Works , Space's Deepest Secrets, and Nova.

Personal life

Tremblay lives in Newton, Massachusetts, with his wife and three children.

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Globular cluster</span> Spherical collection of stars

A globular cluster is a spheroidal conglomeration of stars that is bound together by gravity, with a higher concentration of stars towards their centers. They can contain anywhere from tens of thousands to many millions of member stars, all orbiting in a stable, compact formation. Globular clusters are similar in form to dwarf spheroidal galaxies, and the distinction between the two is not always clear. Their name is derived from Latin globulus. Globular clusters are occasionally known simply as "globulars".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Messier 87</span> Elliptical galaxy in the Virgo Galaxy Cluster

Messier 87 is a supergiant elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo that contains several trillion stars. One of the largest and most massive galaxies in the local universe, it has a large population of globular clusters—about 15,000 compared with the 150–200 orbiting the Milky Way—and a jet of energetic plasma that originates at the core and extends at least 1,500 parsecs, traveling at a relativistic speed. It is one of the brightest radio sources in the sky and a popular target for both amateur and professional astronomers.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Supermassive black hole</span> Largest type of black hole

A supermassive black hole is the largest type of black hole, with its mass being on the order of hundreds of thousands, or millions to billions, of times the mass of the Sun (M☉). Black holes are a class of astronomical objects that have undergone gravitational collapse, leaving behind spheroidal regions of space from which nothing can escape, not even light. Observational evidence indicates that almost every large galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center. For example, the Milky Way galaxy has a supermassive black hole at its center, corresponding to the radio source Sagittarius A*. Accretion of interstellar gas onto supermassive black holes is the process responsible for powering active galactic nuclei (AGNs) and quasars.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chandra X-ray Observatory</span> NASA space telescope launched in 1999

The Chandra X-ray Observatory (CXO), previously known as the Advanced X-ray Astrophysics Facility (AXAF), is a Flagship-class space telescope launched aboard the Space ShuttleColumbia during STS-93 by NASA on July 23, 1999. Chandra was sensitive to X-ray sources 100 times fainter than any previous X-ray telescope, enabled by the high angular resolution of its mirrors. Since the Earth's atmosphere absorbs the vast majority of X-rays, they are not detectable from Earth-based telescopes; therefore space-based telescopes are required to make these observations. Chandra is an Earth satellite in a 64-hour orbit, and its mission is ongoing as of 2024.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Galactic Center</span> Rotational center of the Milky Way galaxy

The Galactic Center is the rotational center and the barycenter of the Milky Way. Its central massive object is a supermassive black hole of about 4 million solar masses, which is called Sagittarius A*, a compact radio source which is almost exactly at the galactic rotational center. The Galactic Center is approximately 8 kiloparsecs (26,000 ly) away from Earth in the direction of the constellations Sagittarius, Ophiuchus, and Scorpius, where the Milky Way appears brightest, visually close to the Butterfly Cluster (M6) or the star Shaula, south to the Pipe Nebula.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Intermediate-mass black hole</span> Class of black holes with a mass range of 100 to 100000 solar masses

An intermediate-mass black hole (IMBH) is a class of black hole with mass in the range 102–105 solar masses: significantly more than stellar black holes but less than the 105–109 solar mass supermassive black holes. Several IMBH candidate objects have been discovered in the Milky Way galaxy and others nearby, based on indirect gas cloud velocity and accretion disk spectra observations of various evidentiary strength.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Centaurus A</span> Radio galaxy in the constellation Centaurus

Centaurus A is a galaxy in the constellation of Centaurus. It was discovered in 1826 by Scottish astronomer James Dunlop from his home in Parramatta, in New South Wales, Australia. There is considerable debate in the literature regarding the galaxy's fundamental properties such as its Hubble type and distance. NGC 5128 is one of the closest radio galaxies to Earth, so its active galactic nucleus has been extensively studied by professional astronomers. The galaxy is also the fifth-brightest in the sky, making it an ideal amateur astronomy target. It is only visible from the southern hemisphere and low northern latitudes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sagittarius A*</span> Black hole at the center of the Milky Way

Sagittarius A*, abbreviated Sgr A*, is the supermassive black hole at the Galactic Center of the Milky Way. Viewed from Earth, it is located near the border of the constellations Sagittarius and Scorpius, about 5.6° south of the ecliptic, visually close to the Butterfly Cluster (M6) and Lambda Scorpii.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sombrero Galaxy</span> Galaxy in the constellation Virgo

The Sombrero Galaxy is a peculiar galaxy of unclear classification in the constellation borders of Virgo and Corvus, being about 9.55 megaparsecs from the Milky Way galaxy. It is a member of the Virgo II Groups, a series of galaxies and galaxy clusters strung out from the southern edge of the Virgo Supercluster. It has an isophotal diameter of approximately 29.09 to 32.32 kiloparsecs, making it slightly bigger in size than the Milky Way.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Messier 77</span> Barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Cetus

Messier 77 (M77), also known as NGC 1068 or the Squid Galaxy, is a barred spiral galaxy in the constellation Cetus. It is about 47 million light-years (14 Mpc) away from Earth. Messier 77 was discovered by Pierre Méchain in 1780, who originally described it as a nebula. Méchain then communicated his discovery to Charles Messier, who subsequently listed the object in his catalog. Both Messier and William Herschel described this galaxy as a star cluster. Today, however, the object is known to be a galaxy.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Paolo Padovani</span> Italian astronomer

Paolo Padovani is an Italian astronomer working at the European Southern Observatory, specializing in the study of Active galactic nuclei including the study of quasars and blazars, evolution and multifrequency studies and extragalactic backgrounds. In 2004 he and several other astronomers discovered 30 supermassive blackholes at the European Astrophysical Virtual Observatory using pioneering techniques.

The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a large telescope array consisting of a global network of radio telescopes. The EHT project combines data from several very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) stations around Earth, which form a combined array with an angular resolution sufficient to observe objects the size of a supermassive black hole's event horizon. The project's observational targets include the two black holes with the largest angular diameter as observed from Earth: the black hole at the center of the supergiant elliptical galaxy Messier 87, and Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NGC 7727</span> Peculiar galaxy in the constellation Aquarius

NGC 7727 is a peculiar galaxy in the constellation Aquarius. It harbors two galactic nuclei, each containing a supermassive black hole, separated 1,600 light years apart.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jacob Noel-Storr</span> Educator, EDI advocate, and astrophysicist

Jacob Noel-Storr is an astrophysics researcher and science education and outreach specialist researcher, Presently the lecturer for practical astronomy and X-Lab-PAM team leader at the University of Groningen and president of InsightSTEM, Inc. He was an assistant research professor and director of the Insight Lab for Science Outreach and Learning Research at Rochester Institute of Technology, and assistant staff scientist in the Steward Observatory and Flandrau Science Center at the University of Arizona. He is known for contributions to the study of Active Galactic Nuclei / Supermassive Black Holes, as well as science / astronomy education and outreach.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Laura Ferrarese</span> Italian astrophysicist

Laura Ferrarese is a researcher in space science at the National Research Council of Canada. Her primary work has been performed using data from the Hubble Space Telescope and the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NGC 3862</span> Galaxy in the constellation Leo

NGC 3862 is an elliptical galaxy located 300 million light-years away in the constellation Leo. Discovered by astronomer William Herschel on April 27, 1785, NGC 3862 is an outlying member of the Leo Cluster.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NGC 541</span> Galaxy in the constellation Cetus

NGC 541 is a lenticular galaxy located in the constellation Cetus. It is located at a distance of about 230 million light years from Earth, which, given its apparent dimensions, means that NGC 541 is about 130,000 light years across. It was discovered by Heinrich d'Arrest on October 30, 1864. It is a member of the Abell 194 galaxy cluster and is included in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies in the category galaxies with nearby fragments. NGC 541 is a radio galaxy of Fanaroff–Riley class I, also known as 3C 40A.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NGC 3585</span> Galaxy in the constellation Hydra

NGC 3585 is an elliptical or a lenticular galaxy located in the constellation Hydra. It is located at a distance of circa 60 million light-years from Earth, which, given its apparent dimensions, means that NGC 3585 is about 80,000 light years across. It was discovered by William Herschel on December 9, 1784.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NGC 545</span> Galaxy in the constellation Cetus

NGC 545 is a lenticular galaxy located in the constellation Cetus. It is located at a distance of about 250 million light years from Earth, which, given its apparent dimensions, means that NGC 545 is about 180,000 light years across. It was discovered by William Herschel on October 1, 1785. It is a member of the Abell 194 galaxy cluster and is included along with NGC 547 in the Atlas of Peculiar Galaxies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">NGC 4365</span> Elliptical galaxy in the constellation Virgo

NGC 4365 is an elliptical galaxy located in the constellation Virgo. It was discovered by William Herschel on April 13, 1784.

References

  1. 1 2 "Grant Tremblay | Center for Astrophysics". pweb.cfa.harvard.edu. Retrieved 2022-12-29.
  2. 1 2 Boen, Brooke (2014-04-02). "2014 Einstein Fellows Chosen". NASA. Retrieved 2022-12-29.
  3. 1 2 "Current Board of Trustees | American Astronomical Society". aas.org. Retrieved 2022-12-29.
  4. ↑ "Astrophysics Advisory Committee | Science Mission Directorate". science.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2022-12-29.
  5. ↑ "Physics of the Cosmos". pcos.gsfc.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2022-12-29.
  6. ↑ "ORCID". orcid.org. Retrieved 2022-12-29.
  7. 1 2 "The Space Review: Review: Light from the Void". www.thespacereview.com. Retrieved 2022-12-27.
  8. 1 2 WHAT DO BLACK HOLES EAT FOR DINNER? | Kirkus Reviews.
  9. 1 2 Writer, Hannah LaClaireStaff (2020-06-25). "Brunswick author teams up with astrophysicist to answer 'silly, yet totally smart' questions about space in new book". Press Herald. Retrieved 2022-12-27.
  10. ↑ "Grant Tremblay". IMDb. Retrieved 2022-12-29.
  11. ↑ "The New Great Space Observatories". The Planetary Society. Retrieved 2022-12-29.
  12. ↑ Tremblay, Grant. "Webb's Record-Breaking First Image Shows Why We Build Telescopes". Scientific American. Retrieved 2022-12-30.
  13. ↑ "The Space Review: Unlocking the next great observatories". www.thespacereview.com. Retrieved 2023-01-17.
  14. ↑ Cortese, L.; Tremblay, G. (2013-03-01). "Fellows at ESO". The Messenger. 151: 63–64. Bibcode:2013Msngr.151...63C.
  15. ↑ "Ph.D. in astrophysical sciences and technology—Grant Tremblay". RIT. Retrieved 2022-12-29.
  16. ↑ Tremblay, Grant, "Feedback regulated star formation in cool core clusters of galaxies" (2011). Thesis. Rochester Institute of Technology. Accessed from https://scholarworks.rit.edu/theses/42
  17. ↑ Tremblay, Grant R.; Oonk, J. B. Raymond; Combes, Françoise; Salomé, Philippe; O’Dea, Christopher P.; Baum, Stefi A.; Voit, G. Mark; Donahue, Megan; McNamara, Brian R.; Davis, Timothy A.; McDonald, Michael A.; Edge, Alastair C.; Clarke, Tracy E.; Galván-Madrid, Roberto; Bremer, Malcolm N.; Edwards, Louise O. V.; Fabian, Andrew C.; Hamer, Stephen; Li, Yuan; Maury, Anaëlle; Russell, Helen R.; Quillen, Alice C.; Urry, C. Megan; Sanders, Jeremy S.; Wise, Michael W. (9 June 2016). "Cold, clumpy accretion onto an active supermassive black hole". Nature. 534 (7606): 218–221. arXiv: 1606.02304 . Bibcode:2016Natur.534..218T. doi:10.1038/nature17969. PMID   27279215. S2CID   205249079.
  18. ↑ "Scientists catch a black hole in an unusual feeding frenzy". Washington Post. Retrieved 2022-12-29.
  19. ↑ NASA finds runaway supermassive black hole in space | CNN Business, 2023-04-07, retrieved 2023-11-25
  20. ↑ Achenbach, Joel (2023-11-13). "Oldest black hole found, and it may solve a cosmic mystery". Washington Post. ISSN   0190-8286 . Retrieved 2023-11-25.
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