Infrared astronomy is a sub-discipline of astronomy which specializes in the observation and analysis of astronomical objects using infrared (IR) radiation. The wavelength of infrared light ranges from 0.75 to 300 micrometers, and falls in between visible radiation, which ranges from 380 to 750 nanometers, and submillimeter waves.
The W. M. Keck Observatory is an astronomical observatory with two telescopes at an elevation of 4,145 meters (13,600 ft) near the summit of Mauna Kea in the U.S. state of Hawaii. Both telescopes have 10 m (33 ft) aperture primary mirrors, and when completed in 1993 and 1996 were the largest optical reflecting telescopes in the world. They are currently the 3rd and 4th largest.
The National Optical Astronomy Observatory (NOAO) was the United States national observatory for ground-based nighttime ultraviolet-optical-infrared (OUVIR) astronomy. The National Science Foundation (NSF) funded NOAO to provide forefront astronomical research facilities for US astronomers. Professional astronomers from any country in the world could apply to use the telescopes operated by NOAO under the NSF's "open skies" policy.
Owens Valley Radio Observatory (OVRO) is a radio astronomy observatory located near Big Pine, California (US) in Owens Valley. It lies east of the Sierra Nevada, approximately 350 kilometers (220 mi) north of Los Angeles and 20 kilometers (12 mi) southeast of Bishop. It was established in 1956, and is owned and operated by the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). The Owens Valley Solar Array portion of the observatory has been operated by New Jersey Institute of Technology (NJIT) since 1997.
Leuschner Observatory, originally called the Students' Observatory, is an observatory jointly operated by the University of California, Berkeley and San Francisco State University. The observatory was built in 1886 on the Berkeley campus. For many years, it was directed by Armin Otto Leuschner, for whom the observatory was renamed in 1951. In 1965, it was relocated to its present home in Lafayette, California, approximately 10 miles (16 km) east of the Berkeley campus. In 2012, the physics and astronomy department of San Francisco State University became a partner.
The Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie is a research institute of the Max Planck Society (MPG). It is located in Heidelberg, Baden-Württemberg, Germany near the top of the Königstuhl, adjacent to the historic Landessternwarte Heidelberg-Königstuhl astronomical observatory. The institute primarily conducts basic research in the natural sciences in the field of astronomy.
A low-ionization nuclear emission-line region (LINER) is a type of galactic nucleus that is defined by its spectral line emission. The spectra typically include line emission from weakly ionized or neutral atoms, such as O, O+, N+, and S+. Conversely, the spectral line emission from strongly ionized atoms, such as O++, Ne++, and He+, is relatively weak. The class of galactic nuclei was first identified by Timothy Heckman in the third of a series of papers on the spectra of galactic nuclei that were published in 1980.
Cornelis A. "Neil" Gehrels was an American astrophysicist specializing in the field of gamma-ray astronomy. He was Chief of the Astroparticle Physics Laboratory at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) from 1995 until his death, and was best known for his work developing the field from early balloon instruments to today's space observatories such as the NASA Swift mission, for which he was the principal investigator. He was leading the WFIRST wide-field infrared telescope forward toward a launch in the mid-2020s. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
Marek Janusz Kukula is a British astronomer and an author of works on popular science. After gaining a PhD in radio astronomy from the University of Manchester in 1994, he specialised in studying distant galaxies. As his research reached the limits of telescopes, he moved into the field of public engagement. In 2008 he was appointed Public Astronomer at the Royal Observatory Greenwich.
George Henry Rieke, a noted American infrared astronomer, is former Deputy Director of the Steward Observatory and Regents Professor of Astronomy and Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona in Tucson. He led the experiment design and development team for the Multiband Imaging Photometer for Spitzer (MIPS) instrument on NASA's infrared Spitzer Space Telescope, and currently chairs the science team of the Mid-Infrared Instrument for the James Webb Space Telescope.
Ian Stewart Glass is an infrared astronomer and scientific historian living in Cape Town, South Africa.
Belinda Jane Wilkes is a Senior Astrophysicist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO) in Cambridge, Massachusetts, US, and former director of the Chandra X-ray Center.
George Kildare Miley is an Irish-Dutch astronomer. He holds a professorship at Leiden University, where he served as director of Leiden Observatory from 1996 to 2003.
Marcia Jean Rieke is an American astronomer. She is a Regents' Professor of Astronomy and associate department head at the University of Arizona. Rieke is the Principal Investigator on the near-infrared camera (NIRCam) for the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). She has also served as the deputy-Principal Investigator on the Near Infrared Camera and Multi-Object Spectrometer (NICMOS) for the Hubble Space Telescope (HST), and as the co-investigator for the multiband imaging photometer on the Spitzer Space Telescope, where she also acted as an outreach coordinator and a member of the Science Working Group. Rieke was also involved with several infrared ground-based observatories, including the MMT Observatory in Arizona. She was vice chair for Program Prioritization of the Astro2010 Decadal Survey Committee, "New Worlds, New Horizons". Marcia Rieke is considered by many to be one of the "founding mothers" of infrared astronomy, along with Judith Pipher.
Dara J. Norman is an astronomer and the deputy director of the Community Science and Data Center at the National Science Foundation's National Optical-Infrared Astronomy Research Laboratory (NOIRLab) in Tucson, Arizona. She is also the Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Diversity Advocate at NOAO. Her research centers on the influence of Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN) on the evolution of galaxies. In 2020, she was inducted into the inaugural cohort of American Astronomical Society Fellows in recognition of her leadership and achievements.
Lucy Frear Fortson is an American astronomer known for her work on gamma-ray astronomy and Galaxy morphological classification and for her leadership of citizen science projects including the Galaxy Zoo and Zooniverse. She is a professor in the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Minnesota.
Frank Eisenhauer is a German astronomer and astrophysicist, a director of the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics (MPE), and a professor at Technical University of Munich. He is best known for his contributions to interferometry and spectroscopy and the study of the black hole at the centre of the Milky Way.
Charlene Heisler was a Canadian astronomer. She is best known for her work on Active Galactic Nuclei (AGN). The Astronomical Society of Australia created the Charlene Heisler Prize in her honour.
Jeyhan Sevim Kartaltepe is an American astronomer, Associate Professor and Director of the Rochester Institute of Technology Laboratory for Multiwavelength Astrophysics. Her research considers observational astronomy and galaxy evolution. She is a lead investigator on the Cosmic Evolution Early Release Science Survey and the COSMOS-Webb Survey conducted on the James Webb Space Telescope.
