Edward L. Wright
University of California, Los Angeles
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Primary Section: 12, Astronomy Secondary Section: 13, Physics Membership Type:
Member
(elected 2011)
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Research Interests
I have primarily worked in infrared astronomy and observational cosmology. I started out studying the far infrared emissions from star forming regions, observing wavelengths blocked by the atmosphere using a telescope on a stratospheric balloon. I shifted to millimeter wavelengths to study the Cosmic Microwave Background using the COBE and WMAP satellites, then returned to infrared wavelengths with the Spitzer Space Telescope and the WISE (Wide-Field Infrared Survey Explorer) satellite. COBE, WMAP and WISE have all made all-sky surveys, while Spitzer is an observatory that can perform sensitive observations of known objects or survey small areas of the sky. WISE has discovered many thousands of asteroids in our Solar System, many hundreds of brown dwarf stars in the Solar neighborhood, as well as many hundred of ultra-luminous infrared galaxies in the distant Universe. My future plans include measuring the Universe with a deep near infrared survey of galaxies using the proposed Widefield InfraRed Survey Telescope (WFIRST) and searching for asteroids in the thermal infrared using the proposed Near Earth Object Camera (NEOCam).
