Infrared observations are a powerful tool for studying various types of astronomical objects. Most of my research focuses on the thermal emission from dust grains which are associated with evolved stars, molecular clouds, and more diffuse parts of the interstellar medium. Objects that are very dusty can be completely opaque to visible light. However, the light absorbed by dust is reradiated in the infrared. Because of this effect, the visible sky and the infrared sky appear very different (see figure below). Studying the dust emission from various types of astronomical objects, like Young Stellar Objects (YSOs) and evolved dusty stars, can help us constrain physical properties of the sources.

Observing astronomical objects in the infrared, especially in the mid-infrared to far-infrared, is challenging because earth's atmosphere is not very transparent at these wavelengths (see figure below). Because of this issue, astronomers who observe from the ground are limited to windows where the atmosphere is more transparent. However, a wide range of wavelengths (~20-500 microns) are simply inaccessible from the ground. For these wavelengths, observations must either be taken in space, where there is no atmospheric absorption, or very high in the atmosphere (~40,000 ft.) where the absorption from the atmosphere is much lower than the ground.

Several infrared observatories have been built over the past few decades. I'll list a few of them here, though it is by no means a complete list: IRAS, ISO, AKARI, Spitzer, WISE, Herschel, and SOFIA. Most of these are space based observatories, though SOFIA is a modified 747-SP that flies in the earth's stratosphere (~40,000 ft.). Observing at these altitudes greatly improves atmospheric transmission because it is above more than 99% of the water vapor in the atmosphere, which happens to be the main culprit for the poor atmospheric transmission at these wavelengths. To find out more about these observatories, follow the links and check out the additional links page!

A large portion of my research uses SOFIA and its mid-infrared camera, the Faint Object infraRed CAmera For the SOFIA Telescope (FORCAST). FORCAST was developed and built at Cornell University by my adviser, Prof. Terry Herter, and other members of the FORCAST team. FORCAST is an excellent tool for observing objects in our galaxy. It provides higher spatial resolution observations than Spitzer at comparable wavelengths, and it isn't strongly effected by saturation issues, which were a problem with many of the Spitzer 24 micron maps of bright star forming regions in our galaxy.

Infrared astronomy is about to get a huge boost from an upcoming NASA Mission known as the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST). JWST is going to be the successor to the Hubble Space Telescope, and will provide astronomers with an unprecedented view of the infrared universe. NASA, the European Space Agency (ESA), and the Canadian Space Agency (CSA) have been working for many years to develop and build JWST, and is slated to launch in early 2019! The combination of sensitivity and spatial resolution will make JWST an excellent tool for observing nearby objects as well as the most distant galaxies in the observable universe. Recently, NASA announced the selection of 13 programs that will be some of the first science observations taken by the telescope (read more about them here). I am a co-investigator and core team member for one of these programs. Our observations will look at the outflows from a nearby massive star to study its mass loss and dust that is being produced in its winds. As a part of this program, I am leading the development of software routines for handling bright source artifacts that may be present in our data. I've created simulated observations for our program that can be seen on my dusty evolved stars page.