Astrophysicist Jean Creighton Speaks of Experience On World’s Largest Moving Astronomical Observatory

Jean Creighton is an airborne astronomy ambassador.

What does an airborne astronomy ambassador do? What does such a title mean exactly? It means that Creighton knows a heck of a lot about physics and space. She says that her love for such fields came at a very young age.

Creighton, director of the Manfred Olson Planetarium located on the UWM campus, spoke Friday afternoon at the Golda Meir Library.

“My mother says that when I was five, we were walking down the street, and I said to her, ‘Mommy, how are stars born?’” Creighton said. “I don’t remember that, but I do remember that when I was in ninth grade I wanted to be an astronomer.”

Creighton recalls how the career counselor she spoke with at the time told her that she wouldn’t make it as an astronomer because her eyesight was not good enough. Creighton did not let that stop her though. She pursued a career in physics and later, upon discovering that a lot of astrophysicists have glasses, combined her love of astronomy with that.

Creighton achieved her bachelor’s degree in physics in 1991 from the University of Athens in Greece (where Creighton grew up), went on to receive her master’s degree in astronomy from St. Mary’s University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, and in 1998, earned her Ph.D. in astrophysics from the University of Waterloo in Waterloo, Ontario.

Such achievements make Creighton more than knowledgeable on such broad and complex subjects as physics and astronomy. Such knowledge allowed Creighton to serve on the largest moving astronomical observatory in the world, SOFIA.

Creighton described her time and responsibilities as an airborne astronomy ambassador on SOFIA (stratospheric observatory for infrared astronomy), a highly modified Boeing 747SP aircraft that carries a 2.5 meter diameter telescope that is dedicated to infrared astronomical research.

“NASA was looking for people who would be willing to fly in the stratosphere and then talk about the experience and fold it into as many classrooms or informal settings as possible,” Creighton said when describing the purpose of the flight.

The objective of the flight was to fly above the troposphere and attempt to observe infrared light. Creighton noted that infrared light is absorbed from the water vapor in the troposphere and that flying above the troposphere meant flying above 99 percent of the water vapor that was absorbing the infrared light that the flight was attempting to see.

Having worked at Caltech for almost two years studying an infrared telescope, such research and data was of great interest to Creighton, making her an ideal candidate for the flight.

Creighton detailed the path of her flight from Palmdale, California, north through Northern British Columbia, Alberta, Manitoba, Saskatchewan, and all the way back to Palmdale. She even shared a story about her experience of the Northern Lights.

“It was truly spectacular, absolutely breathtaking,” Creighton said. “The pilots told me that it was the second best Northern Lights they had ever seen and they flew those routes often.”

Finally, the flight came to an end and landed back in Palmdale with Creighton getting the pleasure of sitting in the cockpit for the landing. Even better, Creighton says, was that visible in the sky upon landing was both the moon and Venus. Creighton said that she probably won’t be making any other flights due to cost and lack of funding, but she loved the experience she had on SOFIA and will cherish such sights and memories forever.