Chris Lintott
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| Chris Lintott | |
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| Known for | Astronomy Television presentation |
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Chris Lintott is an astrophysicist. He is a post-doctoral researcher who is involved in a number of popular science projects aimed at bringing astronomical science to a wider audience. He is the co-presenter of Patrick Moore's BBC series "The Sky at Night" and a co-author of the book Bang! – The Complete History of the Universe with Patrick Moore and Queen guitarist Brian May.[1]
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[edit] Academic background
Lintott has a degree in Natural Sciences from the University of Cambridge and a PhD in astrophysics from University College London, where his thesis was on the subject of star formation. He is a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society and is presently involved in post-doctoral research in the Department of Physics at the University of Oxford and is a junior research fellow at Somerville College.[2] His research there focuses on the application of astrochemical models of star formation to galaxies beyond the Milky Way; particularly the use of sulphur compounds as a signature of stars that are in the process of forming.
[edit] Popular science
[edit] The Sky at Night
He made his first appearances on long running monthly BBC astronomy programme The Sky at Night, presented by Patrick Moore, as a guest in 2000. As Moore's mobility has deteriorated, Lintott has had an increasingly prominent role, often providing on location reporting from events covered by the programme. He now jointly presents the programme with Moore.
In July 2004 Moore suffered a near-fatal bout of food poisoning and Lintott took over as presenter of that month's episode.[3] It is the only episode which Moore has not presented since the show was first broadcast on April 24, 1957.[4]
[edit] Bang! - The Complete History of the Universe
Lintott is the author, along with Patrick Moore and Queen guitarist and astronomer Brian May, of the book Bang! - The Complete History of the Universe, which was published on October 23, 2006. As suggested by the title, the illustrated book is a history of the Universe from the Big Bang to its eventual predicted end. It is aimed at a popular science audience and claims to make its subject matter easily comprehensible to readers who come to it without any knowledge of astronomy.[5]
[edit] Galaxy Zoo
Lintott has been involved in an online crowdsourcing project where members of the public can volunteer their time to assist in classifying over a million galaxies.[6] The project, named Galaxy Zoo, is inspired by Stardust@home, where the public were asked by NASA to search images obtained from a mission to a comet for interstellar dust impacts. Describing the Galaxy Zoo project, Lintott commented that, "One advantage is that you get to see parts of space that have never been seen before. These images were taken by a robotic telescope and processed automatically, so the odds are that when you log on, that first galaxy you see will be one that no human has seen before."[6] Volunteers are asked to judge from the images whether the galaxies are elliptical or spiral and, if spiral, in which direction they are rotating.
[edit] Publications
- Lintott, Chris J and Viti, Serena, "Molecular signature of star formation at high redshifts" Astrophysics and Space Science, Volume 313, Issue 1-3, pp. 327-330
- Lintott, CJ; Ferreras, I; Lahav, O, "Massive Elliptical Galaxies: From Cores to Halos" The Astrophysical Journal, Volume 648, Issue 2 , pp. 826-834.
- Lintott, Chris and Viti, Serena "Rapid Star Formation in the Presence of Active Galactic Nuclei" The Astrophysical Journal, volume 646, Issue 1, pages L37–L39
- Lintott, CJ; Rawlings, JMC, "Determining the cosmic ray ionization rate in dynamically evolving clouds" Astronomy and Astrophysics, Volume 448, Issue 2, March III 2006, pp.425-432
- Lintott, CJ; Viti, S; Williams, DA; Rawlings, JMC; Ferreras, I, "Hot cores: probes of high-redshift galaxies?" Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Volume 360, Issue 4, pp. 1527-1531.
- Lintott, CJ, "The age of precision cosmology?" Journal of the British Astronomical Association, vol.113, no.4, p.231-232
[edit] References
- ^ "Friend to the stars", Guardian Unlimited Arts, October 19, 2006. Retrieved on 2006-11-27.
- ^ Dr Chris Lintott. Somerville College - University of Oxford. Retrieved on 2007-10-02.
- ^ "A Brief Interview With Sir Patrick Moore", Universe Today, November 15, 2004. Retrieved on 2007-02-22.
- ^ "Sir Patrick hit by food poisoning", BBC News, July 06, 2004. Retrieved on 2007-02-22.
- ^ "Guitarist joins astronomers to tell history of universe", Guardian Unlimited, October 24, 2006. Retrieved on 2007-01-07.
- ^ a b "Scientists seek galaxy hunt help", BBC News, July 11, 2007. Retrieved on 2007-07-12.
