John C. Mather

John C. Mather is an American astrophysicist who led NASA’s Cosmic Background Explorer mission. He shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for measurements of the cosmic microwave background.

George F. Smoot: An American physicist who shared the 2006 Nobel Prize in Physics for measuring anisotropies in the cosmic microwave background. Smoot led COBE’s differential microwave radiometer team, while Mather led the mission overall.
Cosmic Background Explorer: NASA’s COBE satellite, launched in 1989 to measure the cosmic microwave background and diffuse infrared radiation. Mather was the project scientist and principal investigator for its Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer.
University of California, Berkeley: A public research university in Berkeley, California, founded in 1868. Mather earned his doctorate in physics there before joining the COBE effort.
Cosmic inflation: A proposed brief era of extremely rapid expansion in the universe’s earliest moments. COBE’s measured primordial temperature variations became constraints on models of inflation.
NASA: The United States government agency responsible for civilian space exploration and aeronautics research. NASA developed and operated COBE, the mission Mather led.
Far Infrared Absolute Spectrophotometer: COBE’s instrument for measuring the cosmic microwave background spectrum across far-infrared and microwave wavelengths. Its spectrum measurement established that the background closely matches a 2.725-kelvin blackbody.
Paul Richards: An American experimental physicist known for research on cosmic background radiation and low-temperature detectors. Richards supervised Mather’s doctoral research on the cosmic microwave background at Berkeley.
Planck satellite: A European Space Agency observatory that mapped the cosmic microwave background from 2009 to 2013. Planck refined the measurements COBE first established at far greater angular resolution.
Nobel Prize in Physics: An annual international award recognizing major contributions to physics. Mather and George Smoot received the 2006 prize for COBE’s blackbody and anisotropy measurements.
Differential Microwave Radiometer: A COBE instrument that mapped differences in cosmic microwave background temperature across the sky. Its map revealed the tiny temperature variations that George Smoot’s team analyzed.

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George SmootRelated: Mather led COBE’s satellite project, whose measurements established the spectrum and anisotropies Smoot studied.