Dr. Jonathan McDowell, Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory

In 1957, the first Sputnik propelled the USSR to leadership in space. Shocked, America mobilized to demonstrate its technology surpassed Russia's - a furious, decade-long race ensued. But, it wasn't obvious until the finish line that Neil Armstrong, and not Alexei Leonov, would be first to walk on another world. Join Dr. McDowell in an exciting review of the events that marked a pivotal moment in history.

Science on State Street is organized and coordinated by the McAuliffe Center and the MetroWest STEM Education Network.

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Dr. Jonathan McDowell is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics in Cambridge, MA. A staff member of the Chandra X-ray Center, he studies black holes, quasars and X-ray sources in galaxies, as well as developing data analysis software for the X-ray astronomy community. Dr. McDowell earned a B.A. in Mathematics in 1981 and a Ph.D. in Astrophysics in 1986 from the University of Cambridge, England. He has previously worked at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, the Jodrell Bank radio observatory, and NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center.