Jonathan Christopher McDowell (born 1960) is an

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either ...

and astrophysicist at the

Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics The Center for Astrophysics , Harvard & Smithsonian (CfA), alternatively called the Harvard–Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, is an astrophysics research institute jointly operated by the Harvard College Observatory and Smithsonian Astr ...

. He is a staff member at the

Chandra Chandra ( sa, चन्द्र, Candra, shining' or 'moon), also known as Soma ( sa, सोम), is the Hindu god of the Moon, and is associated with the night, plants and vegetation. He is one of the Navagraha (nine planets of Hinduism) a ...

X-ray Center. McDowell is the author and editor of

Jonathan's Space Report ''Jonathan's Space Report'' (JSR) is a newsletter about the Space Age, hosted at Jonathan's Space Page. It is written by Jonathan McDowell, a Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian astrophysicist. It is updated as McDowell's schedule pe ...

, an e-mail-distributed newsletter documenting satellite launches.

Education and career

McDowell has a BA in Mathematics (1981) from

Churchill College Churchill College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England. It has a primary focus on science, engineering and technology, but still retains a strong interest in the arts and humanities. In 1958, a trust was establish ...

and a PhD in Astrophysics (1986) from the Institute of Astronomy, both at the

University of Cambridge The University of Cambridge is a public collegiate research university in Cambridge, England. Founded in 1209 and granted a royal charter by Henry III in 1231, Cambridge is the world's third oldest surviving university and one of its most pr ...

, England. After high school, McDowell worked for six months at the Royal Observatory, Greenwich and held a summer job at the Royal Observatory, Edinburgh before he began his PhD studies. His first post-doctoral position was at

Jodrell Bank Jodrell Bank Observatory () in Cheshire, England, hosts a number of radio telescopes as part of the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. The observatory was established in 1945 by Bernard Lovell, a radio astro ...

followed by another at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian in

Cambridge, Massachusetts Cambridge ( ) is a city in Middlesex County, Massachusetts, United States. As part of the Boston metropolitan area, the cities population of the 2020 U.S. census was 118,403, making it the fourth most populous city in the state, behind Boston ...

. McDowell then moved to

Huntsville, Alabama Huntsville is a city in Madison County, Limestone County, and Morgan County, Alabama, United States. It is the county seat of Madison County. Located in the Appalachian region of northern Alabama, Huntsville is the most populous city in ...

, where he spent a year at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. In 1992, McDowell returned to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and currently works there as a staff member at the

X-ray Center.

Research interests

McDowell's main research interests include: * the cosmological microwave background * the X-ray emission from the merging galaxy Arp 220 * the nature of the broad emission line region in quasars * the broad-band spectral energy distribution in quasars * studying nearby galaxies with the Chandra X-ray Observatory In software, McDowell helped design the CIAO data analysis package and the software infrastructure for the Chandra X-ray Observatory data processing pipelines. More recently, McDowell led the creation of an exhibit of astronomical images at the Smithsonian. He is co-director of an undergraduate summer research program whose alumni include Alicia M. Soderberg and

Planet Hunters Planet Hunters is a citizen science project to find exoplanets using human eyes. It does this by having users analyze data from the NASA Kepler space telescope and the NASA Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. It was launched by a team led by ...

scientist Megan Schwamb .

''Jonathan's Space Report''

In his free time, McDowell conducts research into the

history of spaceflight Spaceflight began in the 20th century following theoretical and practical breakthroughs by Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, Robert H. Goddard, and Hermann Oberth. First successful large-scale rocket programs were initiated in the 1920s Germany by Frit ...

, and since 1989 has written and edited ''

'', a free internet newsletter documenting technical details on satellite launches. This information, obtained from original sources including declassified Department of Defense documents and Russian-language publications, can also be found on McDowell's web site. In 1994, McDowell published a history of the North American X-15 spaceplane, in which he suggested that 80 km should be adopted as the boundary of space. In the mesosphere, 80 km is nearly equal to 50 mi, the altitude used by the United States to confer astronaut status on pilots, as in the X-15 program itself. It also differs from the internationally accepted Kármán line altitude of 100 km, used by the Fédération Aéronautique Internationale for the same purpose. In 2018 McDowell published a refereed journal paper in Acta Astronautica making detailed physical arguments for the 80 km value.

Media

In 2017, McDowell weighed in on footage released by the DOD showing a UFO on the website Inverse, though stating he had not reviewed the case in question:

Typically, the explanation is that the thing they are looking at is much closer or much farther than they thought, or is a reflection of some kind,

From 1993 to 2010, McDowell wrote a monthly column for ''

Sky and Telescope ''Sky & Telescope'' (''S&T'') is a monthly American magazine covering all aspects of amateur astronomy, including the following: *current events in astronomy and space exploration; *events in the amateur astronomy community; *reviews of astronomic ...

''. In addition, McDowell has been interviewed on numerous television and radio programs with regard to rocket launches or other celestial phenomena that generated interest amongst the general public.

Honours

He was elected a Legacy Fellow of the American Astronomical Society in 2020. The

main-belt The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...

asteroid 4589 McDowell was named after him in 1993.

Activism

In addition to his astronomical activities, McDowell has been engaged in progressive activism, for example Planned Parenthood, and other social endeavors such as promoting skepticism and atheism.Boston Skeptics
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References

External links

* https://www.planet4589.org {{DEFAULTSORT:McDowell, Jonathan 1960 births Living people Alumni of Churchill College, Cambridge 21st-century British astronomers People educated at King's College School, London Fellows of the American Astronomical Society 20th-century British astronomers