PSW 2465 NASA Astrophysics | Mark Clampin

Lecture Starts at 13:26
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PSW #2465
October 21, 2022
NASA Astrophysics: Exploration, Origins & Physics of the Cosmos
Mark Clampin
Astrophysics Division Director
Science Mission Directorate
NASA Headquarters
The NASA Astrophysics Division is charged with three audacious goals. Understand how the universe works, by probing the origin and destiny of the universe, including the nature of black holes, dark energy, dark matter and gravity. Understand “how did we get here” by exploring the origin and evolution of the galaxies, stars and planets that make up the universe. Find out if “we are alone” by discovering and studying planets around other stars, and exploring whether they could harbor life.
Current operating missions of the Division include the Great Observatories; The James Webb Telescope, The Hubble Space Telescope, The Chandra X-ray Observatory and The Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope; Innovative Explorer Missions such as the Swift Observatory, and the NuSTAR, TESS, and IXPE missions; Missions of Opportunity such as NICER; and SOFIA. The Division also funds investigators involved in the missions of international partners, including ESA’s XMM-Newton.
These and other Astrophysics Divisions exploration missions have collectively contributed to a large proportion of humanity’s knowledge of the heavens.
The near future will be dominated by several new missions as well as operation and continuing scientific analysis of existing missions. New missions include work on ESA’s international Euclid mission to study the structure and formation of the universe, outflows from galaxy nuclei, and dark matter. A new Explorer Mission, COSI, will study the recent history of star birth, star death, and the formation of chemical elements in the Milky Way. A new Explorer Mission of Opportunity, GUSTO, will measure emissions from the interstellar medium to help scientists determine the life cycle of interstellar gas in our Milky Way, witness the formation and destruction of star-forming clouds, and understand the dynamics and gas flow in the vicinity of the center of our galaxy. And the
Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope (WFIRST) will also be launched soon.
The lecture will discuss the goals of the Division, some of its current missions and their significant results, including results from The James Webb Space Telescope, and plans for future study of the universe.
Mark Clampin is the Astrophysics Division Director in the Science Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington, DC. The goals of the Astrophysics Division are to understand how the universe works, understand how we got here and to address the question, are we alone?
Until August 2022, Dr. Clampin was the Director of the Sciences and Exploration Directorate (SED) at the Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC) where he led the Astrophysics, Solar System, Heliophysics and Earth Science Divisions, together with the high performance computing office.
At GSFC, he previously served as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Observatory Project Scientist, and subsequently as Director of the Astrophysics Science Division and Deputy Director of SED. Prior to joining GSFC, Dr Clampin was the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) Group Lead at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI), where he worked on the first four Hubble Space Telescope (HST) Servicing Missions. Dr. Clampin is a Co-Investigator with the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite (TESS), and the Advanced camera for Surveys (ACS) science team and served as the Detector Scientist, responsible for the delivery of three focal plane camera systems. His research interests focus on studying the formation and evolution of planetary systems. Dr. Clampin has also designed ground-based telescope instruments including adaptive optics systems, coronagraphs and detectors.
Dr. Clampin graduated from the University of London with a BS in Physics and from the University of Saint Andrews in Scotland, with PhD in Astronomy. Dr. Clampin is the recipient of the Meritorious Presidential Rank Award, NASA’s Exceptional Achievement and Scientific Achievement Medals, and is a Fellow of SPIE and the Royal Astronomical Society,. Until recently he was the Chief Editor of the SPIE peer-reviewed Journal of Astronomical Telescopes, Instruments and Systems, a position he held for 7 years. He is married with one daughter, and enjoys running and his lifelong passion scuba diving.
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