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Eric Agol

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Eric Agol (/ˈeɪˌɡʊl/; born May 13, 1970, in Hollywood, California) is an American astronomer and astrophysicist who was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2017.[1][2]

Education

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In 1992, Agol received a B.A. in Physics and Mathematics from University of California, Berkeley. He also earned a PhD in physics from University of California, Santa Barbara in 1997.[3] He was awarded a Chandra Postdoctoral Fellowship in 2000, which he completed at Caltech.[4]

Career

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In 2003, Agol became an assistant professor at the University of Washington.[5] He subsequently was named an associate professor, and then professor in 2014, in the Department of Astronomy.[5][6][7] He advised former graduate student Jason Steffen and former postdoc Sarah Ballard.[7] Agol was awarded the 2016 Lecar Prize at Harvard University.[8]

Research

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In 2000, together with Fulvio Melia and Heino Falcke, he proposed the possibility of observing the event horizon of the supermassive black hole in the center of the Milky Way (Sagittarius A *) with interconnected radio telescopes (VLBI at submillimeter wavelengths).[9] This was implemented as the Event Horizon Telescope which detected the shadow of the black hole in the galaxy M87 in 2019, confirming a prediction of General Relativity.[10]

In 2003, he predicted the possibility of the discovery of gravitational lensing in binary stars with Kepler (for example, a white dwarf with a sun-like star), which was also observed with the telescope.[11]

In 2005, he was one of the first to show that exoplanet transits can vary over time due to accompanying planets. He coined the term transit timing variation to describe this.[12]

He proposed the measurement of the infrared phase-variations of Hot Jupiters with the Spitzer Space Telescope[13] and invented the longitudinal mapping from the phase curve, creating a Weather map of the exoplanet HD 189733 b.[14]

In 2011 he proposed that white dwarfs might support a habitable zone for planets which migrate inwards after the red giant phase, and that these could be found with transit surveys.[15] In 2020, a transiting giant planet was found to orbit a white dwarf near this zone with the TESS spacecraft.[16]

He joined the Kepler Space Telescope team to discover the planet Kepler-36b.[17][18] He subsequently discovered the Earth-like planet Kepler-62f, which is 1.4 times the diameter of the Earth and is located in the Goldilock zone.[19][20][21] He also was part of the team which discovered the seven-planet system, TRAPPIST-1, including three Earth-like planets residing in the Goldilock zone.[22][23]

He developed a fast Gaussian process technique based on the Rybicki Press algorithm which has been used to model stellar variability in data from the NASA TESS spacecraft.[24]

Most recently he led a team which used transit-timing with the Spitzer Space Telescope to precisely characterize the Terrestrial Planets in the TRAPPIST-1 system,[25] showing that they share a common composition that differs from the terrestrial planets of the Solar System[26][27]

Personal life

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Agol is the identical twin brother of mathematician Ian Agol.[28][29]

References

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  1. ↑ "John Simon Guggenheim Foundation | Eric Agol". Retrieved 2020-08-24.
  2. ↑ "| NASA Astrobiology Institute". astrobiology.nasa.gov. Retrieved 2020-08-24.
  3. ↑ "Guggenheim Fellowships: Supporting Artists, Scholars, & Scientists". www.gf.org. Retrieved 2026-10-27.
  4. ↑ "Guggenheim Fellowships: Supporting Artists, Scholars, & Scientists". www.gf.org. Retrieved 2026-10-27.
  5. 1 2 "Eric Agol, UW Astronomy". faculty.washington.edu. Retrieved 2020-08-24.
  6. ↑ "Curriculum Vitae and Bibliography (June 2020)" (PDF). University of Washington. University of Washington. Retrieved 2026-10-27.
  7. 1 2 "Agol, Eric – Department of Astronomy". Retrieved 2020-08-24.
  8. ↑ "Lecar Lecture". Harvard University, Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 2026-10-27 – via Internet Archive.
  9. ↑ Falcke, Heino; Melia, Fulvio; Agol, Eric (1 January 2000). "Viewing the Shadow of the Black Hole at the Galactic Center". The Astrophysical Journal. 528 (1): L13–L16. arXiv:astro-ph/9912263. Bibcode:2000ApJ...528L..13F. doi:10.1086/312423. PMID 10587484. S2CID 119433133.
  10. ↑ Overbye, Dennis (10 April 2019). "Darkness Visible, Finally: Astronomers Capture First Ever Image of a Black Hole". The New York Times.
  11. ↑ "'Upside-down planet' reveals new method for studying binary star systems". UW News.
  12. ↑ Agol, E.; Steffen, J.; Sari, R.; Clarkson, W. (11 May 2005). "On detecting terrestrial planets with timing of giant planet transits". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 359 (2): 567–579. arXiv:2005.08922. Bibcode:2005MNRAS.359..567A. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2005.08922.x. S2CID 16196696.
  13. ↑ Cowan, N. B.; Agol, E.; Charbonneau, D. (1 August 2007). "Hot nights on extrasolar planets: mid-infrared phase variations of hot Jupiters". Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society. 379 (2): 641–646. arXiv:0705.1189. Bibcode:2007MNRAS.379..641C. doi:10.1111/j.1365-2966.2007.11897.x.
  14. ↑ Knutson, Heather A.; Charbonneau, David; Allen, Lori E.; Fortney, Jonathan J.; Agol, Eric; Cowan, Nicolas B.; Showman, Adam P.; Cooper, Curtis S.; Megeath, S. Thomas (May 2007). "A map of the day–night contrast of the extrasolar planet HD 189733b". Nature. 447 (7141): 183–186. arXiv:0705.0993. Bibcode:2007Natur.447..183K. doi:10.1038/nature05782. PMID 17495920.
  15. ↑ Agol, Eric (April 2011). "Transit Surveys for Earths in the Habitable Zones of White Dwarfs". The Astrophysical Journal Letters. 731 (2): L31. arXiv:1103.2791. Bibcode:2011ApJ...731L..31A. doi:10.1088/2041-8205/731/2/L31. S2CID 118739494.
  16. ↑ Ashley Strickland. "Giant planet found orbiting a dead white dwarf star". CNN.
  17. ↑ "UW astronomer helps discover planet 1,200 light years from Earth". king5.com.
  18. ↑ "Edmonds astronomer plays key role in discovery of two moonless planets". My Edmonds News. 7 July 2012.
  19. ↑ "Astronomers discover five-planet system with most Earth-like exoplanet yet". UW News. Retrieved 2020-08-31.
  20. ↑ Will Mari. "Life on Kepler-62f? How a UW astronomer found a tantalizing new world". geekwire. Retrieved 2020-08-31.
  21. ↑ "The UW connection to an amazing astronomical discovery". Q13 FOX. 23 February 2017.
  22. ↑ "UW astronomer Eric Agol assists in new seven-planet NASA discovery using 'distracted driving' technique". UW News. Retrieved 2020-08-24.
  23. ↑ "UW astrophysicist played role in discovery of new planets". king5.com. Retrieved 2020-08-31.
  24. ↑ Foreman-Mackey, Daniel; Agol, Eric; Ambikasaran, Sivaram; Angus, Ruth (9 November 2017). "Fast and Scalable Gaussian Process Modeling with Applications to Astronomical Time Series". The Astronomical Journal. 154 (6): 220. arXiv:1703.09710. Bibcode:2017AJ....154..220F. doi:10.3847/1538-3881/aa9332. S2CID 88521913.
  25. ↑ "UW astrophysicist played role in discovery of new planets". king5.com. 24 February 2017.
  26. ↑ "TRAPPIST-1's Seven Earth-Sized Planets Are Likely All Made Of The Same Stuff". IFLScience.
  27. ↑ "The 7 Rocky TRAPPIST-1 Planets May Be Made of Similar Stuff". Jet Propulsion Laboratory.
  28. ↑ "Interview with Ian Agol" (PDF). Notices of the American Mathematical Society. 63 (1): 24. January 2016.
  29. ↑ "Alan Agol". Marin Independent Journal. October 5, 2005.
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