Quarter 4 Biography

Frank Low was born in Mobile, Alabama on November 23, 1933. As a child he was raised in Houston, Texas. He studied physics as an undergraduate at Yale, and then went on to earn a PhD in physics from Rice University in 1959.
Soon afterward, Low got a job with Texas Instruments, in 1961. One of his earlier projects was developing a semiconductor doped with gallium that measured low temperatures by changes in electrical resistance. Low recognized that the technology behind this thermometer could be the basis of a bolometer, or a sensitive detector, that could be used to measure the energy coming from stars in infrared telescopes, which were at the time wavelengths too short to be detected by existing telescopes. Low thought that the infrared detector could reveal celestial objects that would otherwise remain unseen, because it would pick up the heat from objects too small to have previously been found.
In 1962, Low took a prototype bolometer to the National Radio Astronomy Laboratory in Green Bank, West Virginia, and successfully demonstrated it. However, he was not in the clear. Infrared radiation is absorbed by water vapor in the atmosphere, so very little of it actually reached the land-based detectors.
To avoid atmospheric absorption of infrared radiation, Low developed devices that could be carried on aircrafts. First, he built a 2-inch telescope with an infrared detector and arranged for it to be mounted on a Navy jet, a Douglas A3 Skywarrior. This went on in 1965 and 1966, so after two years of demonstration flights proved the utility of the concept, he later built a 12-inch telescope was mounted in a Learjet by NASA in 1969.
Using the telescope on the Learjet Low observed that Jupiter and Saturn emitted more heat than they absorbed from sunlight, demonstrating that both planets must have an internal energy source. Low continued to use the Learjet for research, even after NASA, inspired by Low's success, launched the Kuiper Observatory and other more advanced telescopes.
Low knew, though, that really good observations would require telescopes in space, as they would be completely above the atmosphere and water vapor. He proposed the Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS), and along three other astronomers, and efforts form the United States, the Netherlands, and the United Kingdom was a leader in designing and launching it in 1983. It made the first survey of the sky in infrared from space. Many of the parts for the detectors, especially after an accident at Jet Propulsion Laboratory, came from Low's own Infrared Laboratories, Inc., which he founded in 1967.
IRAS was a massive success, and has discovered over 500,000 infrared sources, including galaxies. It has also discovered debris surrounding stars that show early stages of planetary formation, with debris similar to what was later found in the Kuiper belt-- which encircles our own Solar System.
Because of his enormous contributions to astronomy, especially infrared advancements, Low was asked to serve as a scientists for NASA's Space Infrared Telescope Facility, which ultimately became known as the Spitzer Telescope. However, the team was having trouble launching it under the budget of $100 million--it was abnormally expensive because the telescope was designed to be cooled with liquid helium before launch, and then orbited in a helium-cooled cryostat.
At a 1993 retreat for the project's scientists, Low had an inspiration. To cool only the detector itself before launch, and let the innate heat of the telescope radiate into space. The Spitzer Telescope launched successfully in August 2003.
While making these field-changing discoveries, Low was still a teacher. He taught at the University of Arizona from 1965 to 1996, and simultaneously taught at Rice University from 1966 to 1979. He retired from his company, Infrared Laboratories, Inc., in 2007, and passed away on June 11, 2009 in Tucson, Arizona at the age of 75.