Gerald Fishman

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Gerald Fishman (1991)

Gerald Jay Fishman (born February 10, 1943 in St. Louis ) is an American astrophysicist, known for investigating gamma ray bursts .

Fishman studied physics at the University of Missouri at Columbia (Bachelor's degree in 1965) and Rice University in Houston with a master's degree in 1968 and a doctorate in Space Science in 1969. He was part of a group there that first demonstrated gamma radiation from the Crab Nebula in balloon experiments . After completing his doctorate, he worked for Teledyne Brown Engineering Corporation in Huntsville (Alabama) until 1974 . From 1974 he was a scientist at the Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) of NASA , from 1977 permanently employed as a Staff Scientist . There he was Principal Investigator for the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory (CGRO) of NASA (which operated from 1991 to 2000) with the BATSE detector (Burst and Transient Source Experiment). With it, the identification of the previously mysterious gamma ray bursts, observed as early as the 1960s in the context of observation satellites for nuclear tests, was successful. He is currently a senior scientist under Bill Paciesas at the Gamma Ray Burst Monitor, one of the instruments in the Fermi Gamma Ray Space Telescope, which launched in 2008. As before, CGRO data are still being evaluated (2012).

With BATSE the isotropic distribution of the GRBs could be demonstrated, which indicated that the sources are of extragalactic origin. This was directly demonstrated in 1997, when the Italian-Dutch BeppoSAX observed an afterglow of a GRB for the first time and a redshift was determined a little later. In 1994, Fishman and the CGRO team also discovered gamma-ray bursts over thunderstorms on Earth.

In 1982, 1991 and 1993 he received the Outstanding Scientific Achievement Award from NASA. In 1994 he received the Bruno Rossi Prize . In 2011, he and Enrico Costa received the Shaw Prize for their research on gamma ray bursts. In 1995 he became a Fellow of the American Physical Society .

He has been married since 1967 and has two children. He lives in Hampton Cove , Huntsville , Alabama .

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Life data according to American Men and Women of Science , Thomson Gale 2004
  2. ^ RC Haymes, DV Ellis, GJ Fishman, JD Kurfess, WH Tucker Observation of Gamma Radiation from the Crab Nebula, Astrophysical Journal, Volume 151, January 1968, L9
  3. ↑ Gamma Ray Astrophysics, NASA ( Memento of the original from November 8, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.batse.msfc.nasa.gov
  4. ↑ Fishman et al. a. Discovery of Intense Flashes of Gamma Rays of Atmospheric Origin , Science, Volume 264, 1994, pp. 1313-1316
personal data
SURNAME Fishman, Gerald
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Fishman, Gerald Jay (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astrophysicist
DATE OF BIRTH February 10, 1943
PLACE OF BIRTH St. Louis