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NASA Scientist John C. Mather Wins 2006 Nobel Physics Prize Pg 3 National Aeronautics and Space Administration www.nasa.gov Volume 2 Issue 18 October 2006 View NASA Scientist John C. Mather Wins 2006 Nobel Physics Prize Pg 3 Goddard Technology Wins 2006 R&D 100 Award Pg 5 Final Instrument for GLAST Mission Arrives in Arizona Pg 6 Goddard 02 Mikulski Congratulates Nobel Table of Contents Prize Winner at Goddard Goddard Updates From the Office of Senator Barbara Mikulski Mikulski Congratulates Nobel Prize Winner at Goddard - 2 Senator Barbara A. Mikulski NASA Scientist John C. Mather Wins 2006 (D-Md.) congratulated NASA Nobel Physics Prize - 3 Goddard Space Flight Center NASA Scientist Wins “Service to America Medal” - 4 NASA’s EOS Receives 2006 Space civil servant scientist, and Updates Systems Award - 5 project scientist on the Cosmic Goddard Technology Wins 2006 R&D Background Explorer (COBE), 100 Award - 5 Dr. John Mather for receiving Final Instrument for GLAST Mission Arrives in Arizona - 6 the highest honor in the world Goddard’s HHT Helps Scientists Analyze Highway of science—the Nobel Prize. and Bridge Safety - 7 Soil Conservation Road is Complete! - 8 Photo credit: Jay Friedlander Caption: Dr. Mather accepting his accolades NASA Solicitation & Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System - 8 COBE was built entirely at Goddard in Greenbelt, Md. This is the first Nobel Prize for Goddard Family Goddard an in-house NASA satellite and for a civil servant at NASA. Dr. Mather has devoted Goddard Reduces Electric Consumption by his entire scientific career, the past 10 years, on the James Webb Space Telescope. 15 Percent - 9 Senator Mikulski’s letter of congratulations to Dr. Mather is below: IV&V’s A Day in the Park Event a Success! - 10 Goddard Scientist Revisits Howard Dear Dr. Mather: University Hallways - 11 It is an honor and a pleasure to add my voice to the chorus of congratulations on the Employee Spotlight occasion of your receipt of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics from the Royal Swedish Hispanic Advisory Committee for Employees - 12 Academy of Sciences for your work at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. I know that you share this much coveted award with your friend and colleague, Dr. George F. Smoot of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. Together you enhanced and defined the Big Bang theory moving us “light years” ahead in our comprehension of the origin of the universe. Cover caption: Dr. John C. Mather Photo Credit: Pat Izzo You know that I am a Goddard cheerleader. I am really thrilled that your pioneering advances came as a result of your work at the world-class Goddard Space Flight Center with data obtained from the Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) Mission. Your team’s research into cosmic radiation not only concretized Big Bang, but it also GoddardView Info created the discipline of precision cosmology, which permits us to use microwave Goddard View is an official publication of the Goddard Space background radiation to describe the infancy of the universe. Flight Center. It is published biweekly by the Office of Public Affairs in the interest of Goddard employees, contractors, and Science is about exploration, discovery, and innovation. Goddard is all about innova- retirees. A PDF version is available online at: tion. It is an incubator for new ideas and new technologies. The future of our economy http://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/news/index.html and our nation will depend upon our ability to innovate and to win market share. The new ideas and new technologies, which you and your collaborators at Goddard Managing Editor: Trusilla Steele advance, will create the jobs of tomorrow for Maryland and for America. NASA is too Editor: Alana Little important to Maryland, too important to America and too important to the world. Deadlines: News items and brief announcements for publica- Dr. Mather, you are an American hero. The people of the United States are grateful for tion in the Goddard View must be received by noon of the 1st your service to science and to your nation. Enjoy the limelight you so richly deserve. and 3rd Wednesday of the month. You may submit contribu- Best wishes for the continued success I know will be yours. n tions to the editor via e-mail at [email protected]. Ideas for new stories are welcome but will be published as space allows. All submissions are subject to editing. GoddardView Volume 2 Issue 18 October 2006 03 NASA Scientist John C. Mather Wins 2006 Nobel Physics Prize By Dewayne Washington and Susan Hendrix Updates Photo credit: Jay Friedlander Caption: Attendees raise their glasses in the Building 8 Auditorium in honor of Dr. Mather and the COBE Team’s achievement. The Nobel Prize Committee announced Tuesday, October 10, COBE was built at Goddard to measure microwave and infrared light from the early universe. COBE determined that the cosmic microwave back- that NASA scientist and Goddard Fellow Dr. John C. Mather ground, which is essentially the afterglow of the Big Bang, has a tempera- Goddard is this year’s recipient of the Nobel Prize for Physics. ture of approximately minus 455 degrees Fahrenheit. This observation matched the predictions of the hot Big Bang theory and indicated that nearly all of the radiant energy of the universe was released within the first year Mather is currently serving as Senior Project Scientist for NASA’s James after the Big Bang. Webb Space Telescope program and shares the prize with George Smoot of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in Berkeley, Calif. They received Also, COBE discovered slight temperature variations of approximately the award for their work that helped cement the Big Bang theory of the uni- 10 parts per million in this relatively uniform light. These variations pointed verse and deepened our understanding of the origin of stars and galaxies. to density differences which, through gravity over the course of billions of years, gave rise to the stars, galaxies, and hierarchical structure we “I was thrilled and amazed when I found out we won the Nobel Prize,” see today. Mather said. “The dedicated and talented women and men of the COBE team collaborated to produce the science results being recognized. This is Steven Hawking, a decade ago, independent of the COBE team, called these truly such a rare and special honor.” variations “the most important discovery of the century, if not of all time.” Alfred Nobel, the wealthy Swedish industrialist who endowed the prizes, Mather and Smoot’s work was based on measurements performed with left guidelines in his will for the selection committee which cited “the prize NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer (COBE) satellite, launched in 1989. should be given to those who shall have conferred the greatest benefit on Together, the scientists could observe the universe in its early stages about mankind” and “have made the most important discovery or invention within 380,000 years after it was born. Ripples in the light they detected helped the field of physics.” demonstrate how galaxies came together over time. The 2006 Nobel Laureates will gather in Stockholm on Dec. 10 to receive NASA Administrator Michael Griffin said, “I am thrilled to hear that Dr. John their Nobel Prize Medal, diploma, and monetary award from King Carl Mather has been selected to receive the Nobel Prize in Physics. John would Gustav XVI of Sweden. be a world-class scientist no matter where he had chosen to spend his career, but we at NASA are enormously proud that he has chosen to spend For information about NASA and Agency programs, visit: it with us.” http://www.nasa.gov/home n Dr. Ed Weiler, the Director of NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, added, “This is a tremendous accomplishment for John and for the COBE team. It is also important to note that COBE was built entirely ‘in-house,’ and the fact that a NASA civil servant has won the biggest science award possible demonstrates that world-class research is happening here at NASA.” Volume 2 Issue 18 October 2006 GoddardView 04 NASA Scientist Wins “Service to America Medal” By Nancy Pekar and Nicole Quenelle While working in the field of oceanography at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Huang developed what is considered to be one of the most important discoveries in the field of applied mathematics in NASA history: the Hilbert- Huang Transform (HHT) technology. HHT is a revolutionary, adaptive set of signal-analysis algorithms. Unlike precursor technologies, HHT provides an effective method for analyzing Updates nonlinear and nonstationary signals (such as those occurring in natural phenomena) while improving the accuracy of linear and stationary signal analysis. Although this type of technology might not be easy for the average person to understand, its value is easily grasped. Within NASA, HHT has aided aircraft design, testing of the tiles that insulate the Space Shuttle, and the search for planets and black holes. Outside of NASA, the technology has wide-ranging applications: Photo credit: NASA • Federal investigative organizations are working to incorporate HHT into Caption: Dr. Norden Huang Goddard systems to analyze speech patterns and identify individuals in recordings NASA is pleased to announce that one of its most dedicated in forensic examinations. • The Navy is using HHT in its research to improve submarine design and scientists—Dr. Norden Huang—has won one of the to more easily identify and locate different types of submarines. prestigious “Service to America” medals for 2006 from • The Federal Highway Administration used HHT in highway design and the Partnership for Public Service. Presented at a black-tie engineering studies. [See story on Page 6] • Researchers at Johns Hopkins University’s Bloomberg School of ceremony in Washington, D.C., the awards pay tribute to Public Health and Harvard Medical School’s Beth Israel Deaconess America’s dedicated Federal workforce, highlighting those who Medical Center are using HHT to understand biomedical and physiologi- have made significant contributions to our country.
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