John Johnson (astronomer) facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
John Johnson
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Johnson at the 2012 Cool Stars Meeting in Barcelona
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John Asher Johnson
January 4, 1977 |
| Nationality | American |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Alma mater | Missouri University of Science and Technology University of California at Berkeley |
| Known for | Exoplanet research |
| Awards | Sloan Fellowship (2012) Newton Lacy Pierce Prize (2012) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astronomy |
| Institutions | California Institute of Technology Harvard University |
| Doctoral advisor | Geoffrey Marcy |
John Asher Johnson, born on January 4, 1977, is an American astrophysicist. An astrophysicist is a scientist who studies space and the objects in it, like stars and planets. He is a professor of astronomy at Harvard University. He made history as the first African-American professor to get a permanent teaching position in physical sciences at Harvard. Johnson is famous for finding some of the first planets outside our Solar System that are smaller than Earth. One of his amazing discoveries was the first exoplanet (a planet outside our solar system) that was about the size of Mars!
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Early Life and Learning
John Johnson grew up in St. Louis, a city in the United States. He loved learning about science. In 1999, he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in physics from the University of Missouri at Rolla. This school is now called the Missouri University of Science and Technology.
Before going to graduate school, he worked as a research scientist. He helped with a project called LIGO at Caltech. LIGO is a huge experiment that looks for ripples in space-time called gravitational waves.
Even though he had never taken an astronomy class, he went to UC Berkeley for graduate school. He earned his Ph.D. in astrophysics in 2007. His main goal is to find signs of life beyond our solar system during his lifetime.
His Amazing Career
Today, Johnson is a professor of astronomy at Harvard University. He is one of many professors there who study exoplanets. In 2013, he became the first African-American professor to get a permanent teaching position in any of the physical sciences at Harvard.
Before joining Harvard, he was a professor at the California Institute of Technology. He also worked as a researcher for NASA's Exoplanet Science Research Institute. NASA is the United States space agency. Earlier in his career, he was a special research fellow at the Institute for Astronomy in Hawaii.
Discovering New Worlds
Johnson's research focuses on finding and studying exoplanets. These are planets that orbit stars other than our Sun. He uses many different ways to find these distant worlds.
He helped start a project called the Miniature Exoplanet Radial Velocity Array (MINERVA). This is a group of robotic telescopes on the ground. They search for exoplanets mainly by looking for tiny wobbles in stars. These wobbles are caused by the gravity of orbiting planets. This method is called the radial velocity method. They also look for planets that pass in front of their stars, which is called the transit method.
Johnson has also worked with the Kepler mission. This space telescope found thousands of exoplanets. He helped measure the properties of stars that have planets. This is important because it helps scientists figure out how big and how heavy the planets themselves are. He is also involved with K2, which is the next part of the Kepler mission.
In 2012, Johnson's team made an exciting discovery. They found three small, rocky exoplanets orbiting a red dwarf star. A red dwarf is a small, cool star. They used the Kepler space telescope for this discovery. The star system was later named Kepler-42. The planet farthest from the star was almost as small as Mars. At that time, it was the smallest exoplanet ever found! Later studies used observations from the Keck Observatory to get even more precise measurements of these planets.
Helping Others in Science
John Johnson also cares deeply about helping students from different backgrounds. He started the Banneker Institute. This is a summer program held at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian.
The program gives money and support to college students. It focuses on students from groups that are not often seen in astronomy, especially students of color. The Banneker Institute has now joined with another program to form the Banneker & Aztlán Institute. This new program also helps students who are Latin and Native American. Besides doing research, the institute talks about important social justice issues and how they relate to the field of astronomy.
See also
In Spanish: John Johnson (astrónomo) para niños
