The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

The Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian

Support Our Science

Mark Freeman

Center for Astrophysics

Senior Systems Engineer

Mark Freeman

mfreeman@cfa.harvard.edu

About

Mark Freeman is an engineer in the CfA Central Engineering Systems group. He joined the CfA in 1989, coming from instrument design at a large industrial process controls supplier. He has worked on Chandra, Constellation-X, SDO, Hinode, Lynx, and Parker Solar Probe, and is currently doing Systems Engineering for the next generation Event Horizon Telescope.

BS Mechanical Engineering / BS Industrial Engineering (simulations)

Telescopes and Instruments

Hinode

The Sun is the closest star to Earth, and the single most important influence on the worlds of the Solar System in terms of the light and particles it emits. Studying the Sun, in other words, helps us understand the habitability of Earth, but also other stars elsewhere in the universe. One important solar observatory is the Japanese Aerospace Exploration Agency’s Hinode spacecraft, which carries three powerful instruments to study the Sun in X-rays, visible light, and ultraviolet light. Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian engineers collaborated in the development of the X-ray Telescope for the spacecraft. Hinode has been observing the Sun continuously since its launch in 2006, providing important day-by-day information about our host star’s activity.

Visit the Hinode/XRT Website

Chandra

The Chandra X-ray Observatory is NASA’s flagship X-ray observatory, providing essential data on everything from the environment surrounding newborn stars to the emissions from hot plasma inside galaxy clusters. The Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), as part of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, manages Chandra’s day-to-day operations, providing spacecraft control, observation planning, and data processing for astronomers. Chandra is one of NASA’s orbiting Great Observatories, along with the Hubble.

Visit the Chandra Website

Lynx X-Ray Observatory

The Lynx X-ray Observatory is a proposed X-ray space telescope, designed to be the next generation following NASA’s Chandra X-ray Observatory and the European Space Agency’s upcoming Athena Telescope. This observatory will be able to take images of a larger area of the sky in X-ray light with better resolution than any existing telescope, allowing astronomers to study the first supermassive black holes, the hot gas surrounding galaxies as they evolve, and radiation from the earliest stars. Researchers from the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and other universities are presenting Lynx to NASA for consideration in the 2020 Decadal Survey, with a proposed launch date in the mid-2030s.

Visit the Lynx X-Ray Observatory Website

Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO)

The Sun is both life-giving and dangerous. Variations in the Sun’s light and wind have profound effects on Earth, while solar storms can wreak havoc on power and communications systems. NASA’s Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) is a spacecraft dedicated to studying these potentially dangerous variations, and the magnetic fields that drive them. Engineers at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian contributed to the design and construction of the four Atmospheric Imaging Array (AIA) telescopes. AIA is one of the three major experiments carried by SDO.

Visit the SDO Website

Event Horizon Telescope (EHT)

Black holes are found in the centers of most galaxies, where they can influence star formation and the distribution of atoms in the environment surrounding them. However, direct observation of a black hole is difficult because it is so small relative to their masses. Founded by Shep Doeleman at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian, the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) captured the first image ever taken of a black hole: specifically, the ring of light produced by matter just as it falls into the black hole at the center of the nearby galaxy M87. The EHT is a virtual observatory consisting of telescopes spanning the planet, from Greenland to the South Pole. The international collaboration operating the EHT includes observatories affiliated with the Center for Astrophysics: the CfA’s Submillimeter Array (SMA) and the Greenland Telescope.

Visit the EHT Website

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

The Greenland Telescope

The polar regions are challenging environments for humans, but worthwhile for astronomy with their long nights and often-clear skies. The Greenland Telescope is the latest telescope to be placed in the Arctic, as part of the Event Horizon Telescope (EHT) project to capture the first images of black holes. The telescope operates in the region of the spectrum where infrared and radio light meet, which is ideal for looking into the dense central region of the Milky Way, where our galaxy’s supermassive black hole resides. The Greenland Telescope is jointly operated by the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian and the Academia Sinica Institute of Astronomy & Astrophysics (ASIAA) of Taiwan.

Visit the Greenland Telescope 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

The Submillimeter Array - Maunakea, HI

Located near the summit of Maunakea on the Big Island of Hawaii, the Submillimeter Array (SMA) is one of the flagship observatories of the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. The observatory consists of eight radio dishes working together as one telescope, giving astronomers a window on a wide range of astronomical objects and phenomena: planets and comets in our own Solar System; the birth of stars and planets; and the supermassive black holes hidden at the centers of the Milky Way and other galaxies. The SMA is operated jointly by the CfA and the Academia Sinica in Taiwan.

Visit the Submillimeter Array Website