Radio Astronomy in Canada: Young Science in a Young Country (Historical & Cultural Astronomy)

Here is the tale of Canada’s intriguing development of the science of Radio Astronomy. In 1946 the lone figure of Arthur Covington started monitoring the radio emission of the Sun, a programme that continues to this day. By the 1960s Canada had progressed to constructing two radio observatories at either ends of the country (the DRAO and the ARO), and universities were coming onboard. The story continues through the dire times for these and follows their fortunes and fates right up to the present, with Canada now playing key roles in billion-dollar international telescope projects. It concludes with the construction and operation of Canada’s own transformational telescope, CHIME. Anecdotes and images throughout the book liven the story.

The authors―two practising astronomers―have painstakingly put together this fascinating story, drawing on first-hand experiences, valuable contributions from many colleagues, and the research of science historian, Richard Jarrell (1942-2013).

This book fills a gap in the substantial literature on the history of radio astronomy. Carefully-researched by three experts and based on input by further experts in the field, it documents the extensive scientific and (especially) technical innovations of Canadian scientists and engineers. This includes the important Canadian absolute flux-density calibrations, the critical Canadian contribution to low-frequency radio astronomy and VLBI, and the long-running solar monitoring programme. Frank discussions about the excellent 46-m ARO telescope and its fate lead into considerations of Canada’s contributions to recent international projects – the JCMT, ALMA and the upcoming SKA. The book concludes with a description of CHIME, Canada’s own new-generation radio installation.

Ken Kellermann, Senior Scientist Emeritus, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Charlottesville, USA

Jasper Wall began his career in Radio Astronomy in Toronto with Alan Yen. This included building a 320-MHz receiver, and carrying out absolute background measurements using a pyramidal horn. Instead of Cambridge, he chose Australia to do research in both radio astronomy and optical. First working on a receiver for Parkes Radio Telescope at CSIRO Sydney, he joined John Bolton and began a sky survey at the hitherto unprecedented high frequency of 2.7 GHz. Wall’s survey discovered the extensive ‘flat-spectrum’ quasar population, the key to the relativistic beaming model of radio sources. His research at Parkes lasted 8½ years. Statistical results strongly favoured a “Big Bang” universe rather than the “Steady State” preferred by John Bolton, Fred Hoyle and Tommy Gold. He was part of the team which in 1969 brought the Apollo 11 moon landing via the Parkes Radio Telescope to an estimated 650 million TV viewers world wide. He was also involved in Apollo 13 and 14. Optical astronomy research with the Stromlo 74-in telescope yielded many faint-source identifications with quasars and radio galaxies. In 1974-1978 he joined Martin Ryle’s group at the MRAO Cambridge UK, continuing his research in active galaxy systems at both radio and optical wavelengths, plus submm and X-ray observations. He taught statistics to astronomy students at Cambridge, leading to his 2003 book with co-author Charles Jenkins, “Practical Statistics for Astronomers” (2nd edition 2012). Joining the Royal Greenwich Observatory in 1979 as Head of Astrophysics and Astrometry Division, he continued research in optical and radio astronomy. In 1986 he became Director of the Isaac Newton Group of Telescopes on La Palma for four years, and then Director of the Royal Greenwich Observatory 1995-1998. He was Vice-President of the Royal Astronomical Society 1994-1996. He has observed on telescopes throughout the world, writing over 200 papers. Professorships followed at Oxford 1998-2002, then 2003 to the present at University of British Columbia, writing, working with students, teaching statistics, and continuing research in astronomy and cosmology.

 

Elizabeth Griffin has studied stellar astrophysics throughout her career, first pursuing abundance analyses of bright stars with very high resolution spectra, and coauthored the Procyon Atlas (in both analogue and digital formats) in 1979. Since 1980 her research has centered on analyzing a special sub-group of binary stars that exhibit composite spectra, observing with major North American and European telescopes to record their spectra and also developing techniques and software to determine the masses of the stars involved. Able to apply her methodology to the rare subgroup of eclipsing systems, she has assembled a rich archive of digital spectra acquired with the powerful coudé spectrograph of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory in Canada (near where she settled in 2002), uncovering oddities that were not previously known; part of that research featured in a book, Giants of Eclipse (Springer; 2015) which she co-authored, basing it upon an AAS conference that she had organized. With interests that have over time burgeoned from photographic data to digital data and to problems shared with data analysts in other sciences, she has developed a strong curiosity for parallel activities in her science, chiefly in the preservation and reuse of historical (principally analogue) data for modern research purposes. She was a core organizer and Proceedings editor of two IAU symposia that focussed on the astronomy’s Time Domain and included the whole gamut of variability cadences from seconds to centuries. She enjoys editing papers and Proceedings both on astronomy and on more general topics. Membership of related professional bodies includes the IAU, the AAS (representing heritage data through Working Groups in both organizations), and chairing the CASCA Heritage Committee.

Richard Jarrell (1946–2013) discovered and fostered a love of nature, and of astronomy, from an early age. Born in the US, he obtained a major in History at Indiana University, with minors in astronomy and in History and Philosophy of Science, before moving to Canada and earning a PhD at the University of Toronto’s Institute for History and Philosophy of Science and Technology. He became a lecturer in the Department of Natural Sciences at nearby York University, where he was able to combine his deep interests in both astronomy and the history of science by developing courses that reflected his passion for astronomy, the breadth of his thinking, and his ability to view the wider picture. He remained at York, where he rose through the ranks to a full Professorship. His first major work―a book―published in 1988 (The Cold Light of Dawn) recounted comprehensively the history of astronomy in Canada as conducted at visual wavelengths. Richard’s significant strength was as an ‘institution builder’―the source of the energy that drove the vital first steps of a new entity until it was self-supporting. A founding member of the Canadian Science and Technology Historical Association, he earned renown as a champion of Canada’s scientific heritage, though his influence extended further inasmuch as he saw the whole of creation as a unique ecosystem.