Dirk Terrell (born August 14, 1965) is an American

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 o ...

and

space art "Space art" (also "astronomical art") is the term for a genre of modern artistic expression that strives to show the wonders of the Universe. Like other genres, space art has many facets and encompasses realism, impressionism, hardware art, scu ...

ist who is the Director of the Computer and Software Sciences section in the Planetary Science Directorate of the Space Science and Engineering division of the

Southwest Research Institute Southwest Research Institute (SwRI), headquartered in San Antonio, Texas, is an independent and nonprofit applied research and development (R&D) organization. Founded in 1947 by oil businessman Tom Slick, it provides contract research and develo ...

. He is a Fellow and former President of the International Association of Astronomical Artists. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from

Clemson University Clemson University () is a public land-grant research university in Clemson, South Carolina. Founded in 1889, Clemson is the second-largest university in the student population in South Carolina. For the fall 2019 semester, the university enr ...

and a Ph.D. in astrophysics from the

University of Florida The University of Florida (Florida or UF) is a public land-grant research university in Gainesville, Florida. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida, traces its origins to 1853, and has operated continuously on its ...

Career

In 2013, he was a member of a team of scientists that discovered and characterized the extrasolar planet

Kepler-64b PH1b (standing for "Planet Hunters 1"), or by its NASA designation Kepler-64b, is an extrasolar planet found in a circumbinary orbit in the quadruple star system Kepler-64. The planet was discovered by two amateur astronomers from the Planet H ...

, a.k.a. PH1, the first planet discovered in a quadruple star system. He showed that suspected transits in the

Kepler Space Telescope The Kepler space telescope is a disused space telescope launched by NASA in 2009 to discover Earth-sized planets orbiting other stars. Named after astronomer Johannes Kepler, the spacecraft was launched into an Earth-trailing heliocentric orbi ...

data of the system were indeed due to a planet transiting the eclipsing binary in the system. In 2014, he helped discover and characterize planets in three additional stellar systems, including Kepler-88 and

Kepler-247 From the total of stars known to have exoplanets (as of ), there are a total of known multiplanetary systems, or stars with at least two confirmed planets, beyond the Solar System. This list includes systems with at least three confirmed plane ...

. He is a core team member of the AAVSO Photometric All-Sky Survey (APASS), a photometric survey of over 100 million stars, providing measurements in eight photometric filters.

Awards and honors

Asteroid

79912 Terrell 79912 Terrell, provisional designation , is a dark Adeonian asteroid from the central regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 6 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 10 February 1999, by astronomers Walter Cooney and Ethan Kandler at ...

is named in his honor.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Terrell, Dirk 1965 births Living people American astronomers

Artists An artist is a person engaged in an activity related to creating art, practicing the arts, or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse refers to a practitioner in the visual arts only. However, the ...