Edward L. (Ned) Wright

Astronomy
Office: P&A 3-909
Phone: (310)825-5755

Courses currently taught:

Astronomy 275: Cosmology
Astronomy 278: Order of Magnitude Astrophysics
Astronomy 6: Cosmology - Our Changing Concepts of the Universe
Astronomy 140: Stellar Systems and Cosmology

Educational Background:

ABscl, Harvard Physics, 1969
Ph.D., Harvard Astronomy, 1976

Brief Bio:

Edward L. (Ned) Wright received his AB and PhD degrees from Harvard University, and was a Junior Fellow in the Society of Fellows. After teaching in the MIT Physics Department, Professor Wright has been at UCLA since 1981.

Research Interests:

Prof. Wright is interested in infrared astronomy and cosmology. He is the PI on the Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (WISE) Midex proposal, which used to be called NGSS. He has been working on the COsmic Background Explorer (COBE) since 1978. In 1992 he received the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal for his work on the Cosmic Background Explorer. The COBE team received the Gruber Prize in Cosmology in 2006. Prof. Wright is an Interdisciplinary Scientist on the Space InfraRed Telescope Facility (SIRTF) Science Working Group. He has worked on the SIRTF project since 1976. Prof. Wright has studied fractal dust grains which are able to absorb and emit efficiently at millimeter wavelengths, and thus may be an important factor in studies of the cosmic microwave background. From 1994-1998, he has served as a Science Editor of The Astrophysical Journal. In 1995 he was named the CSEOL Distinguished Scientist of the Year.

Prof. Wright is also working on the Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP). WMAP is a mission to follow-up the COBE discovery of fluctuations in the early Universe. It will observe the structure of the Universe 300,000 years after the Big Bang with better angular resolution than the COBE mission, and thus be able to detect the seeds of present day superclusters of galaxies. MAP was launched on 30 June 2001 and released in first year of data on 11 Feb 2003. In 2004 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and in 2007 he was elected as a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Legend: Temperature fluctuations in the cosmic microwave background radiation after the dipole pattern (due to the Solar System's motion relative to the rest of the Universe) and the strong emission from the Milky Way galaxy have been removed. Based on 4 years of data from COBE.

Selected Publications

Wright, E. L. et al., 2008, "The Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe (WMAP) Source Catalog".

WMAP 5 year papers

Wright, E. L. 2007, "Comparing the NEATM with a Rotating, Cratered Thermophysical Asteroid Model".

Wright, E. L. 2007, "Constraints on Dark Energy from Supernovae, Gamma Ray Bursts, Acoustic Oscillations, Nucleosynthesis and Large Scale Structure and the Hubble constant".

Wright, E. L. 2006, "A Cosmology Calculator for the World Wide Web", PASP, 118, 1711.

Wright, E. L. 2001, ApJL, 556, L17, "Comparing Optical and Near-Infrared Luminosity Functions".

Wright, E. L. 2001, ApJ, 553, 538, "DIRBE Minus 2MASS: Confirming the Cosmic Infrared Background at 2.2 Microns".

Wright, E. L. & Reese, E. D. 2000, ApJ, 545, 43, "Detection of the Cosmic Infrared Background at 2.2 and 3.5 microns Using DIRBE Observations".

Gorjian, V., Wright, E. L. & Chary, R. R. 2000, ApJ, 536, 550. "Tentative Detection of the Cosmic Infrared Background at 2.2 and 3.5 microns Using Ground Based and Space Based Observations".

Wright, E. L. 1998, ApJ, 496, 1-8. "Angular Power Spectra of the COBE DIRBE Maps"

Wright, E. L. "Scanning and Mapping Strategies for CMB Experiments", presented at the IAS CMB Data Analysis workshop, 22 Nov 96.