Frank Low

Frank Low

Frank Low lived an interesting life. It started when he was born on November 23, 1933 in a very expecting place to produce such an accomplished astronomer which was Mobile, Alabama. He moved to Texas as a child and when to college at Yale and then got his graduate degree in Philosophy at Rice, because he liked Texas so much. He had one wife, three children. And when he died he had six grandchildren that he enjoyed playing with. Frank Low started of working with solid state physics but then became interested in the new field of infrared astronomy. This new branch covered physics in astronomy and astrophysics that was useful in studies of astronomical objects visible in infrared radiation. In this field they discovered that the wavelength of this infrared light ranges from 0.75 to 300 microns, visible light is about 380 to 750 nanometers, this is useful in viewing astronomical objects because visible light is much easier scattered through the dust in space. Infrared also falls in between the visible radiation, that we can see, and which ranges from and submillimeter waves.

Frank Low created a telescope that could be put onto an spaceship that helps avoid atmospheric absorption of infrared radiation, this allows images to be much cleaner and thus allowing more information to be obtained from the picture. The spaceship that they used this first on was called the Douglas A-3 skywarrior. The telescope that was on it was a 2 inch one and was used in 1965 and 1966. Later when they learned how useful this new telescope that he had invented was NASA has a 12 inch one made to be boarded on a spaceship.

With this telescope Frank Low discovered that both Jupiter and Saturn emitted more energy than that energy that was caused by the solar radiation. This new discovery found prof that these planets are an internal source of energy that causes more energy than just the sun.

Some of the awards that he won include: the Rumford Prize, that he won in1986, Helen Warner Prize, that he won in 1968, Joseph Weber Award, that he won in 2003, Karl G. Jansky Lectureship, that he won in 2006, and the last award that he won was the Bruce Medal, that we won in 2006. He also had things named after him like, Kleinmann-Low Nebula and the Asteroid 12142 called Franklow this asteroid is in the main belt asteroid classification with an orbital period that consists of 2034.0120719 days.


His life ended at the age of 75 after a long illness on the sad day of June 11, 2009 in yet another state Tucson, Arizona. Frank Low was an astronomer that allowed new information to be shown about the galaxy that without him we would not have the knowledge about right now.