Contact:
Lindsay Renick Mayer
NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md.
lmayer@pop100.gsfc.nasa.gov
301-286-5687
July 8, 2002
Greenbelt, Md. -- Scientific endeavors are rarely associated with the imagination. But for Dr. Floyd Stecker, an astrophysicist at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center, the two have much in common.
Stecker, a Silver Spring, Md., resident, was recently awarded Goddard's annual John C. Lindsay Award for Space Science for his innovative series of papers that will help scientists study galaxy evolution in a new way.
"I feel honored to receive this award, not only because it's the highest award that Goddard gives for science, but also because it's hardly ever given to theorists," said Stecker.
Stecker's award-winning work provides a technique for scientists to measure infrared-optical-ultraviolet (IR-O-UV) radiation from extragalactic space that is emitted from stars and dust in galaxies.
Although the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite has measured this radiation at some infrared wavelengths, it is difficult to measure because of interference by galactic foreground radiation and radiation from dust in the solar system. So after the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) discovered blazars (gamma-ray emitting active galaxies), Stecker and his collaborators proposed an indirect way of taking these measurements.
The idea is to look at high-energy gamma radiation emitted by the blazars. These gamma rays interact with the IR-O-UV radiation, converting some of them into pairs of electrons and positrons (positive antimatter electrons) and thus reducing the gamma rays' intensity. By examining the shape and absorption features of the resultant gamma ray spectrum, scientists can learn about the characteristics of the IR-O-UV radiation.
This same technique can be used not only to explore the present IR-O-UV background radiation, but also by looking at distant blazars, it can be used to study the background radiation as it existed in the past. Because these blazars are so far away, the gamma rays may have been emitted from galaxies when they were young and are only reaching Earth now. The Large Area Telescope (LAT), as part of the Gamma-ray Large Area Space Telescope (GLAST) mission projected for September 2006,will use Stecker's technique to help scientists understand how galaxies form and evolve.
"This work provides a new mechanism to measure the presence of this diffuse photon background and also explains previously puzzling facts about gamma ray emission from blazars," said Michael Salamon, one of Stecker's collaborators on the award-winning research and NASA Headquarters' Discipline Scientist for Fundamental Physics. "Floyd clearly deserves this award -- it's overdue!"
Though the honor awards a decade of research, it is also a tribute to a lifetime of passion for science. From the age of four, Stecker, who grew up in New York City, never considered a career outside of science.
He earned a bachelor's degree in physics from MIT and, as he jokingly explains, after nearly electrocuting his advisor in a cosmic ray lab, he decided a career in theory might be more appropriate. He got a doctorate in astrophysics from Harvard University after writing a trailblazing thesis on theory of the production of cosmic gamma rays. His subsequent book, "Cosmic Gamma Rays" was the first book in the field.
When Stecker is not thinking about the problems of the cosmos in his office, he likes to play tennis, chess, the piano and engage in horseback riding. In addition to studying the early history of galaxies, Stecker occupies his time outside of work reading about the early history of man, archeology and paleontology. Had he not become a scientist, Stecker thinks he might have become a science fiction writer.
"My job lets me take what may seem like science fiction and make it into real science," said Stecker. "Most people don't realize that imagination is very important to a scientist. It's not just about analyzing data."
The John C. Lindsay Award has celebrated this type of cutting-edge thinking since 1966. It was named in honor of Dr. John C. Lindsay who contributed greatly to exploration of the Sun via satellite and rocket-borne experiments and who founded the Orbiting Solar Observatory Project.
In the past this honor has awarded research on topics like the spectrum of gamma rays from supernovae, interstellar extinction and the development of the Galileo probe's Mass Spectrometer.