Laird A. Thompson

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Laird A. Thompson (born 6 September 1947), is a professor of astronomy at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Thompson graduated with a B.A. in both physics and astronomy from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1969. He received his Ph.D. in astronomy from the University of Arizona in 1974. He is professionally associated with the International Astronomical Union, the American Astronomical Society, the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, the International Society for Optical Engineering, and has served as an adjunct member of the Center for Adaptive Optics. [1]

Astronomy natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects

Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and phenomena. It applies mathematics, physics, and chemistry in an effort to explain the origin of those objects and phenomena and their evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxies, and comets; the phenomena also includes supernova explosions, gamma ray bursts, quasars, blazars, pulsars, and cosmic microwave background radiation. More generally, all phenomena that originate outside Earth's atmosphere are within the purview of astronomy. A related but distinct subject is physical cosmology, which is the study of the Universe as a whole.

Physics Study of the fundamental properties of matter and energy

Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its motion, and behavior through space and time, and that studies the related entities of energy and force. Physics is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines, and its main goal is to understand how the universe behaves.

University of California, Los Angeles Public research university in Los Angeles, California

The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public research university in Los Angeles. It became the Southern Branch of the University of California in 1919, making it the third-oldest undergraduate campus of the 10-campus University of California system. It offers 337 undergraduate and graduate degree programs in a wide range of disciplines. UCLA enrolls about 31,000 undergraduate and 13,000 graduate students and had 119,000 applicants for Fall 2016, including transfer applicants, making the school the most applied-to of any American university.

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Work in Astronomy

From 1974 to 1987, Thompson worked in extragalactic astronomy and he concentrated on clusters of galaxy, galaxy morphology, and galaxy redshift surveys. In 1978, along with Stephen Gregory, he discovered voids. [2] In the early 1980s, he began to work on projects aimed at improving the image quality at ground-based telescopes. His first instrument was a microprocessor controlled tip-tilt system called ISIS which was built at the Institute for Astronomy for use at the Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii. From 1990 to present, Thompson has worked in adaptive optics.

Void (astronomy) vast empty spaces between filaments which contain very few or no galaxies

Cosmic voids are vast spaces between filaments, which contain very few or no galaxies. Voids typically have a diameter of 10 to 100 megaparsecs; particularly large voids, defined by the absence of rich superclusters, are sometimes called supervoids. They have less than one tenth of the average density of matter abundance that is considered typical for the observable universe. They were first discovered in 1978 in a pioneering study by Stephen Gregory and Laird A. Thompson at the Kitt Peak National Observatory.

The Institute for Astronomy (IfA) is a research unit within the University of Hawaii system, led by Robert McLaren as Acting Director. IfA main headquarters are located at 2680 Woodlawn Drive in Honolulu, Hawaii, 21°18′27″N157°48′41″W, adjacent to the University of Hawaii at Mānoa campus. Additional facilities are located at Pukalani, Maui and Hilo on Hawaiʻi island. IfA employs over 150 astronomers and support staff. IfA astronomers perform research into Solar System objects, stars, galaxies and cosmology.

Hawaii State of the United States of America

Hawaii is the 50th and most recent state to have joined the United States, having received statehood on August 21, 1959. Hawaii is the only U.S. state located in Oceania, the only U.S. state located outside North America, and the only one composed entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean.

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References

  1. ↑ L. Thompson Homepage Retrieved on October 19, 2007
  2. ↑ Freedman, R.A., & Kaufmann III, W.J. (2008). Stars and galaxies: Universe. New York City: W.H. Freeman and Company.
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