Astronomy Professor Moves to World Beyond

The Harvard University Department of Astronomy lost a star on Oct. 3, 2005. Menzel Research Professor of Astrophysics Alastair G.W. Cameron died of heart failure in Tucson, Arizona. He was 80 years old.

Cameron was an active member of the Harvard faculty for 26 years. He started as an associate director of the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics and served as Department of Astronomy chair from 1976-1982.

Cameron’s primary research interests were the structure and evolution of solar nebula and the formation and sequence evolution of low-mass stars, as well as their nucleosynthesis.

He also studied planet formation and the physics of planets and their atmospheres.

In 1976, Cameron challenged contemporary beliefs with his new theory for the origin of the moon.

He argued that an object at least the size of Mars struck our planet, causing fragments to be strewn into orbit around the Earth. The debris then coalesced into what is now known as the moon. This “giant impact” theory is now widely accepted in the scientific community.

Professor Avi Loeb, who worked alongside Cameron from 1993-1999 in the Department of Astronomy said his work has helped augment the growth of the field.

“He directed the research of many other younger people,” Loeb said.

“He basically groomed a whole generation of people who specialize in the evolution of stars. Now many of his students are leaders in the field.”

This “school of thought” that Cameron developed involved a different way of looking at the production of chemical elements in stars and many other facets of astronomy.

“He always [thought] about any problem from a fresh perspective,” Loeb said. “I very much admire that in him.”

Cameron’s research was not the only mark he left on Harvard.

Wilson Research Professor of Applied Astronomy George B. Field, who also worked with him for many years, wrote in an e-mail that Cameron “was particularly effective in helping the faculty to revise both graduate and undergraduate courses to be more appealing to both students in the Department and beyond.”

Field also described him as “eminently approachable” to his students.

Cameron held numerous positions of leadership throughout his career, including chairman of the Space Science Board of the National Academy of Sciences.

In this position he helped NASA develop its direction of space exploration, which is still largely in place today.

Throughout his life, Cameron earned multiple awards such as the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal in 1983 and the J. Lawrence Smith Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 1988.

Less than a week before his death, Cameron was awarded the Hans A. Bethe Prize from the Divison of Nuclear Physics of the American Physical society for his “pioneering work” in the development of nuclear astrophysics.

Cameron’s wife Elizabeth passed away in 2001. Cameron is survived by his sister who still resides in Cameron’s hometown of Winnipeg, Manitoba. “[He] will be missed by us all,” Field said.