The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

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Jacob Hawthorne

Center for Astrophysics

Mechanical Engineer

Jacob Hawthorne

jacob.hohl@cfa.harvard.edu

About

Jacob is a mechanical engineer in the CfA Central Engineering's Mechanical group. He joined the CfA in 2017 after graduating from Clarkson University with a BS in Mechanical Engineering. He has worked on several projects, including ARCUS, AirSPEC/ASPIRE, MethaneAIR, Hi-C, and MaGIXS and is currently developing a micron-scale movement detection system for ARCUS.

MS in Mechanical Engineering

Telescopes and Instruments

Arcus

The most powerful astronomical events are often very bright in X-rays, including supermassive black holes, the hot atmospheres of stars, and the extremely hot plasmas in and around galaxy clusters. Arcus is a proposed NASA space telescope designed to study the X-ray spectrum of a wide range of astronomical phenomena to a level of sensitivity higher than any previous X-ray observatory. Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian scientists are the leaders of the collaboration proposing Arcus. The mission proposal will be due in late 2023 and, if ultimately accepted, Arcus would launch in 2031.

See Arcus Website

High Resolution Coronal Imager (Hi-C)

Why the Sun’s corona — the wispy outermost atmosphere — is so much hotter than its surface stands as a big mystery in solar science. NASA’s High-Resolution Coronal Imager (Hi-C) is an ultraviolet telescope designed to help solve the mystery, and understand the processes by which the Sun sends violent storms of particles into the Solar System. Since most of the light from the Sun’s atmosphere is blocked by air molecules on Earth, Hi-C is carried on a short-flight rocket into Earth’s upper atmosphere. Since 2012, Hi-C has flown three times, providing the highest resolution images of the corona and revealing new details in the Sun’s atmosphere. Hi-C is jointly operated by NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC) and the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, with contributions from other researchers around the world.

Visit the Hi-C Website

AIR-Spec/ASPIRE

The Sun generates a powerful magnetic field, which drives the solar storms that occasionally batter the worlds of the Solar System. However, the magnetic fields in the solar corona are very hard to observe, despite their importance in creating space weather. For that reason, scientists at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian developed the Airborne Infrared Spectrometer (AIR-Spec), an instrument carried aboard an airplane to measure the properties and effects of the coronal magnetic field during solar eclipses, where the corona is most plainly visible. AIR-Spec was inaugurated during the 2017 total solar eclipse visible across the United States; an improved version will fly during the 2019 eclipse visible from South America and the southern Pacific Ocean.

Visit the AIR-Spec Website