Photo by Missy Isaacson
HOWARD ISAACSON
I am a professional astronomer at the University of California, Berkeley.
My research is generously supported by funding from NASA, the National Science Foundation and other public and private people and organizations that support research in physics sciences.
A LITTLE ABOUT ME
After a somewhat non-traditional educational path, I reached a milestone in my career when I graduated and became a professional Astronomer in 2009. In spring of that year, NASA's Kepler spacecraft launched and began to change astronomy, as well as my own professional career. Since then, my research has been driven by ground based observations from telescopes across the world. Most importantly, those observations have taken place at Lick Observatory on Mt. Hamilton in California (above), and at the Keck Observatory on the summit of Maunakea in Hawai'i. Feel free to get in touch with me to say hi or learn more about my work.
MY RESEARCH
My research spans the cosmic realm of exoplanets, nearby stars, black holes and the search for life universe. In particular, I am interested in how we can use telescopes and spectrometers to intricately study the light from stars. In collecting this data, we extend a long tradition of gazing at the cosmos. With modern tools, we can obtain a level of detail beyond imagination just a few hundred years ago. When collecting data from stars, we also learn about the planets that sound them. If another star is in the system, we learn about it too. Black holes are particularly difficult to study because they give off no light of their own. We rely on material falling into a black hole or a star in orbit near a black hole to understand its properties. Microlensing is also used to study black holes and the Roman Space Telescope is a promising mission for microlensing of stars, compact objects and planets. And like most large NASA missions, it will likely make many unexpected discoveries.
-- EXOPLANETS --
CALIFORNIA PLANET SEARCH
Observations from ground based telescopes, including those at Lick and Keck Observatory helped to detect the first exoplanets around sun-like stars. Space based telescopes such as NASA's Kepler spacecraft have shown that 1 in 5 stars like the sun has a planet like Earth. Kepler identified thousands of individual exoplanets, many of which we characterized by measuring their masses at Keck Observatory.
-- Moving Universe Lab --
The Moving Universe Lab studies stars and their movements within the Milky Way. Of particular interest are stars toward the center of Galaxy. The super-massive black hole is its own phenomenon, but the stars between here and there can tell us about objects that are difficult to observe directly such as stellar mass black holes. NASA's Roman Space Telescope will examine this part of the sky in exquisite detail.
CONTACT ME
501 Campbell Hall, University of California at Berkeley
Berkeley, CA 94720-3411
