Roger David Blandford, FRS, FRAS (born 1949) is a British theoretical astrophysicist, best known for his work on

black hole A black hole is a region of spacetime where gravity is so strong that nothing, including light or other electromagnetic waves, has enough energy to escape it. The theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass can def ...

Early life

Blandford was born in

Grantham Grantham () is a market and industrial town in the South Kesteven district of Lincolnshire, England, situated on the banks of the River Witham and bounded to the west by the A1 road. It lies some 23 miles (37 km) south of the Lincoln a ...

, England and grew up in

Birmingham Birmingham ( ) is a city and metropolitan borough in the metropolitan county of West Midlands in England. It is the second-largest city in the United Kingdom with a population of 1.145 million in the city proper, 2.92 million in the We ...

Career

Blandford is famous in the astrophysical community for the Blandford-Znajek process which is a mechanism for powering

relativistic jets An astrophysical jet is an astronomical phenomenon where outflows of ionised matter are emitted as an extended beam along the axis of rotation. When this greatly accelerated matter in the beam approaches the speed of light, astrophysical jets bec ...

by the extraction of rotational energy from a black hole. The Blandford-Znajek mechanism has been invoked by the

Event Horizon Telescope The Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) is a large Astronomical interferometer, telescope array consisting of a global network of radio telescopes. The EHT project combines data from several very-long-baseline interferometry (VLBI) stations around Ear ...

Collaboration to explain the jet power in the first observation of a black hole shadow in the giant

elliptical galaxy An elliptical galaxy is a type of galaxy with an approximately ellipsoidal shape and a smooth, nearly featureless image. They are one of the four main classes of galaxy described by Edwin Hubble in his Hubble sequence and 1936 work ''The Real ...

M87. Blandford also theorized another mechanism for jet formation through hydromagnetic winds launched from accretion disks. In addition to the Blandford-Znajek and Blandford-Payne mechanisms for the formation of relativistic jets, Roger Blandford also helped devise a widely used theoretical model for jet geometric and spectral properties, the Blandford-Königl conical jet model, used to predict radio shifts and low-frequency spectral slopes for optically thick jet cores. He has also made significant contributions to other astrophysical phenomena such as supernovae, by extending the Sedov-Taylor

blast wave In fluid dynamics, a blast wave is the increased pressure and flow resulting from the deposition of a large amount of energy in a small, very localised volume. The flow field can be approximated as a lead shock wave, followed by a self-similar sub ...

solution to the ultra-relativistic limit of the Blandford-McKee solution. In April 2005 he wrote a letter to the astronomy community showing his concern about the George W. Bush administration US space science policy. He is also the chair of Astro2010, the decadal survey that helps define and recommend funding priorities for U.S. astronomy research in the upcoming decade. The Astro2010 report was released August 13, 2010.

Positions

Blandford is a

Fellow of the Royal Society Fellowship of the Royal Society (FRS, ForMemRS and HonFRS) is an award granted by the judges of the Royal Society of London to individuals who have made a "substantial contribution to the improvement of natural knowledge, including mathemati ...

, Member of the U.S.

National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the Nat ...

, Fellow of the

Royal Astronomical Society (Whatever shines should be observed) , predecessor = , successor = , formation = , founder = , extinction = , merger = , merged = , type = NG ...

and Fellow of the

American Academy of Arts and Sciences The American Academy of Arts and Sciences (abbreviation: AAA&S) is one of the oldest learned societies in the United States. It was founded in 1780 during the American Revolution by John Adams, John Hancock, James Bowdoin, Andrew Oliver, a ...

. He is currently Luke Blossom Professor in the School of Humanities and Sciences at

Stanford University Stanford University, officially Leland Stanford Junior University, is a private research university in Stanford, California. The campus occupies , among the largest in the United States, and enrolls over 17,000 students. Stanford is conside ...

, Professor of Physics at Stanford University and at

Stanford Linear Accelerator Center SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, originally named the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center, is a United States Department of Energy National Laboratory operated by Stanford University under the programmatic direction of the U.S. Departme ...

(SLAC)

National Accelerator Laboratory Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory (Fermilab), located just outside Batavia, Illinois, near Chicago, is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory specializing in high-energy particle physics. Since 2007, Fermilab has been operat ...

. He was the Pehong and Adele Chen Director, Kavli Institute for Particle Astrophysics and Cosmology from 2003 to 2013. He was a co-editor of the ''

Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics The ''Annual Review of Astronomy and Astrophysics'' is an annual peer reviewed scientific journal published by Annual Reviews. The co-editors are Ewine van Dishoeck and Robert C. Kennicutt. The journal reviews scientific literature pertaining to ...

'' (2005–2011).

Awards

* 2020 – 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 ...

* 2020 –

Shaw Prize The Shaw Prize is an annual award presented by the Shaw Prize Foundation. Established in 2002 in Hong Kong, it honours "individuals who are currently active in their respective fields and who have recently achieved distinguished and signifi ...

in Astronomy * 2016 –

Crafoord Prize The Crafoord Prize is an annual science prize established in 1980 by Holger Crafoord, a Swedish industrialist, and his wife Anna-Greta Crafoord. The Prize is awarded in partnership between the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Crafoord Foun ...

* 2013 –

Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society The Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society is the highest award given by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS). The RAS Council have "complete freedom as to the grounds on which it is awarded" and it can be awarded for any reason. Past awar ...

* 2011 –

Humboldt Prize The Humboldt Prize, the Humboldt-Forschungspreis in German, also known as the Humboldt Research Award, is an award given by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation of Germany to internationally renowned scientists and scholars who work outside of G ...

* 1999 –

Eddington Medal The Eddington Medal is awarded by the Royal Astronomical Society for investigations of outstanding merit in theoretical astrophysics. It is named after Sir Arthur Eddington. First awarded in 1953, the frequency of the prize has varied over the year ...

* 1998 –

Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics The Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics is jointly awarded each year by the American Astronomical Society and American Institute of Physics for outstanding work in astrophysics. It is funded by the Heineman Foundation in honour of Dannie Heine ...

* 1982 – Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy

References

External links

Oral history interview transcript with Roger Blandford on 29 April 2021, American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library and Archives

Prof Roger Blandford, FRS
at Debrett's ''People of Today'' * , Part of the Silicon Valley Astronomy Lecture Series {{DEFAULTSORT:Blandford, Roger 1949 births Living people People from Grantham Alumni of Magdalene College, Cambridge 20th-century British astronomers Fellows of the Royal Society Fellows of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Fellows of the American Astronomical Society Institute for Advanced Study visiting scholars Members of the United States National Academy of Sciences Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society Winners of the Dannie Heineman Prize for Astrophysics 21st-century British astronomers Annual Reviews (publisher) editors Fellows of the American Physical Society