Mike Edmunds | |
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Born | Michael G Edmunds 1949 (age 74–75) [1] |
Nationality | British |
Alma mater | University of Cambridge |
Known for |
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Awards | George Darwin Lectureship (2005) |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Astrophysics, |
Institutions | Emeritus Professor of the Cardiff University |
Mike (Michael) Edmunds FAS FInstP FLSW is a British astrophysicist, known for his research on the interpretation of the chemical composition of the Universe and the origin of interstellar dust.
He was born in Dewsbury, Yorkshire, UK in 1949. His father’s job with the railways took him to many locations in the UK, so Edmunds grew up in several locations, moving with his parents. [1] When Edmunds was 12, his family settled in Woking, Surrey, where he started at the local grammar school.
He received his undergraduate degree in physics in summer 1971 and proceeded to gain his doctorate, also from the University of Cambridge.
He has lived and worked in Wales for over 45 years, having settled there after receiving his doctorate in Cambridge, England.
He is an Emeritus Professor and former Head of the School of Physics and Astronomy at Cardiff University in Wales. [2] He has served on many committees and panels of the UK Research Councils, The Royal Astronomical Society and the Institute of Physics. He was formerly a member of the Particle Physics and Astronomy Research Council. In 2015, he was elected a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales. [3]
Beginning in May 2022, he was appointed as chair of Royal Astronomical Society for a two year term. [4]
His main areas of research have been in the determination and interpretation of the chemical composition of galaxies and the Universe. He has also worked on the origin of interstellar dust. [5] In later years, he has focused on the history of astronomy and science within society.
He heads the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project: [6] an international collaboration investigating the extraordinary astronomical machine dating from around the 200 BC, discovered by sponge divers over a century ago, off the Greek island of Antikythera. [7] He discussed this with Jim Al-Khalili when he was a guest on the BBC Radio 4 programme The Life Scientific in 2024. [1]
Sir Fred Hoyle (24 June 1915 – 20 August 2001) was an English astronomer who formulated the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis and was one of the authors of the influential B2FH paper. He also held controversial stances on other scientific matters—in particular his rejection of the "Big Bang" theory (a term coined by him on BBC Radio) in favor of the "steady-state model", and his promotion of panspermia as the origin of life on Earth. He spent most of his working life at St John's College, Cambridge and served as the founding director of the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy at Cambridge.
A molecular cloud, sometimes called a stellar nursery (if star formation is occurring within), is a type of interstellar cloud, the density and size of which permit absorption nebulae, the formation of molecules (most commonly molecular hydrogen, H2), and the formation of H II regions. This is in contrast to other areas of the interstellar medium that contain predominantly ionized gas.
Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest include planets, moons, stars, nebulae, galaxies, meteoroids, asteroids, and comets. Relevant phenomena include supernova explosions, gamma ray bursts, quasars, blazars, pulsars, and cosmic microwave background radiation. More generally, astronomy studies everything that originates beyond Earth's atmosphere. Cosmology is a branch of astronomy that studies the universe as a whole.
Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline, James Keeler, said, astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the heavenly bodies, rather than their positions or motions in space–what they are, rather than where they are", which is studied in celestial mechanics.
Theoretical astronomy is the use of analytical and computational models based on principles from physics and chemistry to describe and explain astronomical objects and astronomical phenomena. Theorists in astronomy endeavor to create theoretical models and from the results predict observational consequences of those models. The observation of a phenomenon predicted by a model allows astronomers to select between several alternate or conflicting models as the one best able to describe the phenomena.
John G. McWhirter FRS FREng FIMA FInstP FIEE FLSW is a British mathematician and engineer in the field of signal processing.
Peter Coles is a theoretical cosmologist at Maynooth University. He studies the large scale structure of our Universe.
Intergalactic dust is cosmic dust in between galaxies in intergalactic space. Evidence for intergalactic dust has been suggested as early as 1949, and study of it grew throughout the late 20th century. There are large variations in the distribution of intergalactic dust. Dust may affect intergalactic distance measurements, such as supernovae and quasars in other galaxies. Partially due to the dust's absorption and re-emission of visible light, observations of more distant astronomical objects have greater apparent magnitude when conducted in infrared.
Ofer Lahav is Perren Chair of Astronomy at University College London (UCL), Vice-Dean (International) of the UCL Faculty of Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MAPS) and Co-Director of the STFC Centre for Doctoral Training in Data Intensive Science. His research area is Observational Cosmology, in particular probing Dark Matter and Dark Energy. His work involves Machine Learning for Big Data.
Walter K Gear FLSW is an astrophysicist, professor of physics and head of the School of Physics and Astronomy at Cardiff University. Dr. Gear's research is largely concerned with star formation in galaxies.
Geraint Francis Lewis, FLSW is a Welsh astrophysicist, best known for his work on dark energy, gravitational lensing and galactic cannibalism. Lewis is a Professor of Astrophysics at the Sydney Institute for Astronomy, part of the University of Sydney's School of Physics. He is head of the Gravitational Astrophysics Group. He was previously the Associate Head for Research at the School of Physics, and held an Australian Research Council Future Fellowship between 2011 and 2015.
Donald Delbert Clayton was an American astrophysicist whose most visible achievement was the prediction from nucleosynthesis theory that supernovae are intensely radioactive. That earned Clayton the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal (1992) for “theoretical astrophysics related to the formation of (chemical) elements in the explosions of stars and to the observable products of these explosions”. Supernovae thereafter became the most important stellar events in astronomy owing to their profoundly radioactive nature. Not only did Clayton discover radioactive nucleosynthesis during explosive silicon burning in stars but he also predicted a new type of astronomy based on it, namely the associated gamma-ray line radiation emitted by matter ejected from supernovae. That paper was selected as one of the fifty most influential papers in astronomy during the twentieth century for the Centennial Volume of the American Astronomical Society. He gathered support from influential astronomers and physicists for a new NASA budget item for a gamma-ray-observatory satellite, achieving successful funding for Compton Gamma Ray Observatory. With his focus on radioactive supernova gas Clayton discovered a new chemical pathway causing carbon dust to condense there by a process that is activated by the radioactivity.
Warrick John Couch is an Australian professional astronomer. He is currently a professor at Swinburne University of Technology in Melbourne. He was previously the Director of Australia's largest optical observatory, the Australian Astronomical Observatory (AAO). He was also the president of the Australian Institute of Physics (2015–2017), and a non-executive director on the Board of the Giant Magellan Telescope Organization. He was a founding non-executive director of Astronomy Australia Limited.
James Scott Dunlop is a Scottish astronomer and academic. He is Professor of Extragalactic Astronomy at the Institute for Astronomy, an institute within the School of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Edinburgh.
Christine D. Wilson is a Canadian-American physicist and astronomer, currently a University Distinguished Professor at McMaster University.
Haley Gomez MBE, FRAS, FLSW is a Welsh Professor of Astrophysics at Cardiff University. She studies the formation and evolution of cosmic dust using the Herschel Space Observatory. She is Deputy Head of the School of Physics and Astronomy. She was awarded an Order of the British Empire in the 2018 Queen’s Birthday Honour’s.
Sir Robert Hughes Williams,, commonly known as Robin Williams, is a Welsh physicist and academic, specialising in solid state physics and semiconductors. He was Vice-Chancellor of University of Wales, Swansea from 1994 to 2003. He had taught at the New University of Ulster and University of Wales, College of Cardiff, before joining Swansea.
Katherine Gudrun Isaak is a British astrophysicist and the Project Scientist for the European Space Agency Characterising Exoplanet Satellite mission (CHEOPS). She is based at European Space Research and Technology Centre.
John Seiradakis was a Greek astronomer and professor emeritus at the Department of Physics of the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki. He is best known for his contributions in the understanding of radio pulsars, the Galactic Center and archaeoastronomy. Since the early 2000s he was heavily involved in the decoding of the Antikythera mechanism. He was a founding member of the Hellenic Astronomical Society, the European Astronomical Society and the International Olympiad on Astronomy and Astrophysics (IOAA).
Erminia Calabrese, FLSW, is a Professor of Astronomy and the Director of Research at Cardiff University School of Physics and Astronomy. She works in observational cosmology using the cosmic microwave background radiation to understand the origins and evolution of the universe. In 2024 she became a Fellow of the Learned Society of Wales, and in 2022 she was awarded the Institute of Physics Fred Hoyle medal and the Learned Society of Wales Dillwyn medal.