Woodruff T. Sullivan III ("Woody" Sullivan) (born 1944) is a

U.S. The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

physicist A physicist is a scientist who specializes in the field of physics, which encompasses the interactions of matter and energy at all length and time scales in the physical universe. Physicists generally are interested in the root or ultimate caus ...

and

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, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...

, known primarily for his work in

astrobiology Astrobiology, and the related field of exobiology, is an interdisciplinary scientific field that studies the origins, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. Astrobiology is the multidisciplinary field that investig ...

galactic astronomy Galactic astronomy is the study of the Milky Way galaxy and all its contents. This is in contrast to extragalactic astronomy, which is the study of everything outside our galaxy, including all other galaxies. Galactic astronomy should not be co ...

and

extragalactic astronomy Extragalactic astronomy is the branch of astronomy concerned with objects outside the Milky Way galaxy. In other words, it is the study of all astronomical objects which are not covered by galactic astronomy. The closest objects in extragalactic ...

, history of astronomy, gnomonics, and the search for extraterrestrial intelligence (

SETI The search for extraterrestrial intelligence (SETI) is a collective term for scientific searches for intelligent extraterrestrial life, for example, monitoring electromagnetic radiation for signs of transmissions from civilizations on other p ...

). Sullivan was born in

Colorado Colorado (, other variants) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. It encompasses most of the Southern Rocky Mountains, as well as the northeastern portion of the Colorado Plateau and the western edge of t ...

, USA. He went on to study

physics Physics is the natural science that studies matter, its fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which r ...

at the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

, where he received a

B.S. A Bachelor of Science (BS, BSc, SB, or ScB; from the Latin ') is a bachelor's degree awarded for programs that generally last three to five years. The first university to admit a student to the degree of Bachelor of Science was the University ...

in 1966, and in 1971 a Ph.D. (astronomy) from the University of Maryland (supervisor: Frank Kerr). In 2012, Sullivan received the LeRoy E. Doggett Prize from the American Astronomical Society's Historical Astronomy Division for his career contributions to the field of the history of astronomy, in particular his work on the history of early radio astronomy, culminating in his book ''Cosmic Noise: A History of Early Radio Astronomy'' (2009). He was elected a Legacy Fellow of the

American Astronomical Society The American Astronomical Society (AAS, sometimes spoken as "double-A-S") is an American society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The primary objective of the AAS is to promote the adv ...

in 2020.

Earth radio leakage research

In order to sample the radio signature of Earth from an external site and thus test whether TV broadcasting is in fact the principal component, Sullivan and S. H. Knowles used the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width of ...

as a passive reflector of Earth's radio frequency leakage. Using the 305-m

Arecibo radio telescope The Arecibo Telescope was a spherical reflector radio telescope built into a natural sinkhole at the Arecibo Observatory located near Arecibo, Puerto Rico. A cable-mount steerable receiver and several radar transmitters for emitting signals wer ...

, a wide range of frequencies were scanned between 100 and 400

MHz The hertz (symbol: Hz) is the unit of frequency in the International System of Units (SI), equivalent to one event (or cycle) per second. The hertz is an SI derived unit whose expression in terms of SI base units is s−1, meaning that one he ...

. After local

interference Interference is the act of interfering, invading, or poaching. Interference may also refer to: Communications * Interference (communication), anything which alters, modifies, or disrupts a message * Adjacent-channel interference, caused by extr ...

was eliminated (using an on-Moon, off-Moon technique), the frequencies of most observed signals could be identified with the television AM video carriers of various nationalities. This experiment demonstrated that the lunar surface is capable of reflecting

terrestrial Terrestrial refers to things related to land or the planet Earth. Terrestrial may also refer to: * Terrestrial animal, an animal that lives on land opposed to living in water, or sometimes an animal that lives on or near the ground, as opposed to ...

band III (175-230 MHz) television signals

References

External links

Eavesdropping Mode and Radio Leakage from Earth

Archived from th

1944 births Living people Massachusetts Institute of Technology School of Science alumni University System of Maryland alumni American astronomers 21st-century American physicists Astrobiologists Fellows of the American Astronomical Society {{US-astronomer-stub