Media contact: Noelle Lemoine, communications assistant; tele: (413) 597-4277; email: [email protected]
WILLIAMSTOWN, Mass., April 21, 2003 — Space Telescope Science Institute astronomer Howard Bond will deliver a talk, “Hubble Space Telescope Observations of the Light Echo Around V838 Monocerotis: An Astronomical CAT Scan.” The lecture is scheduled for Friday, April 25, at 2:30 p.m. in the Thompson Physics Laboratory, room 205.
Bond is an observational astronomer with research interests in various aspects of stellar and nebular astrophysics, including stellar evolution, binary and variable stars, and planetary nebulae. He has used many of the largest ground-based telescopes, and has regularly received observing time on the Hubble Space Telescope.
In an extensive series of studies of the central stars in planetary nebulae carried out at LSU, Kitt Peak, and Cerro Tololo observatories, Bond and his colleagues were able to show that a significant fraction of planetary nebulae are actually ejected because of interactions of close pairs of stars. However nothing prepared him, he says, for the stunning details within planetary nebulae that are now being revealed by the Hubble Space Telescope.
His work has been in the area of providing support for the research programs of Hubble Space Telescope scientists, and he managed the Hubble Postdoctoral Fellowship Program for several years. Currently he works in the Office of Public Outreach at the Institute.
Since it was launched a decade ago, the Hubble Space Telescope (HST) has been illuminating many of the forces shaping our cosmos. The Hubble Heritage Project, which Bond co-founded, acts as a bridge between the endeavors of scientists and the public’s understanding. Its website gallery displays raw data as observations occur, pictures “distilled” from HST exposures, and supplemental stories and the information. Pictures and information can be accessed at http://hubblesite.org/newscenter/
Bond said he acquired the astronomy bug at about the age of 10, when his father pointed out some of the constellations above his hometown of Bethesda, Md., and is still addicted more than four decades later. He has had a passionate interest in planetary nebulae, dating back to his amateur astronomy days.
He received his undergraduate degree in physics at the University of Illinois and a Ph.D. in astronomy at the University of Michigan, where his thesis work was a large-scale sky survey for extremely old stars with low contents of chemical elements heavier than hydrogen and helium.
He was professor of physics and astronomy at Louisiana State University from 1970 to 1984, and has been at the Space Telescope Science Institute since then.
From 1991 to 1998 he served as managing editor of the publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, one of the major North American astronomy journals. Currently, he is a member of the scientific oversight committee for the Wide Field Camera 3, a powerful new camera to be installed in Hubble in 2004.
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Published April 21, 2003
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