Rudolph E. Schild (born 10 January 1940) is an astrophysicist at the Harvard-Smithsonian Center for Astrophysics, who has been active since the mid-1960s. He has authored or contributed to over 250 papers, of which 150 are in refereed journals.

Career

Schild's research in the 1980's and 90's was focused on using

gravitational lensing A gravitational lens is matter, such as a galaxy cluster, cluster of galaxies or a point particle, that bends light from a distant source as it travels toward an observer. The amount of gravitational lensing is described by Albert Einstein's Ge ...

to determine the age of the universe and the

Hubble constant Hubble's law, also known as the Hubble–Lemaître law, is the observation in physical cosmology that galaxies are moving away from Earth at speeds proportional to their distance. In other words, the farther a galaxy is from the Earth, the faste ...

. The investigation into quasar images also, in 1994, suggested the existence of a binary pair of stars within a few light years of Earth. He also published in 1996 his findings on

rogue planets A rogue planet, also termed a free-floating planet (FFP) or an isolated planetary-mass object (iPMO), is an interstellar object of planetary mass which is not gravitationally bound to any star or brown dwarf. Rogue planets may originate from ...

identified through analysis of

Hubble Space Telescope The Hubble Space Telescope (HST or Hubble) is a space telescope that was launched into low Earth orbit in 1990 and remains in operation. It was not the Orbiting Solar Observatory, first space telescope, but it is one of the largest and most ...

images. Then, in the 2000's, Schild began focusing on the double galaxy CSL-1 and

superstring theory Superstring theory is an attempt to explain all of the particles and fundamental forces of nature in one theory by modeling them as vibrations of tiny supersymmetric strings. 'Superstring theory' is a shorthand for supersymmetric string t ...

, which was noted as a possible step toward uncovering the

theory of everything A theory of everything (TOE), final theory, ultimate theory, unified field theory, or master theory is a hypothetical singular, all-encompassing, coherent theoretical physics, theoretical framework of physics that fully explains and links togeth ...

. Schild is a member of a group of researchers who have published frequently on the claim that photos on

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

from various NASA rover missions have shown evidence of fossilized life. He is a proponent of " magnetospheric eternally collapsing objects" (MECOs), an alternative to

black hole A black hole is a massive, compact astronomical object so dense that its gravity prevents anything from escaping, even light. Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity predicts that a sufficiently compact mass will form a black hole. Th ...

s. These results are most often published in '' Journal of Cosmology'', a fringe astronomy journal edited by Schild himself,Journal of Cosmology
/ref> while his other research is published in mainstream astronomy journals such as ''

MNRAS ''Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society'' (MNRAS) is a peer-reviewed scientific journal in astronomy, astrophysics and related fields. It publishes original research in two formats: papers (of any length) and letters (limited to fiv ...

'' and the ''

Astronomical Journal ''The Astronomical Journal'' (often abbreviated ''AJ'' in scientific papers and references) is a peer-reviewed monthly scientific journal owned by the American Astronomical Society (AAS) and currently published by IOP Publishing. It is one of the ...

''.

Personal life

Schild is married to mezzo-soprano Jane Struss, who teaches voice at

Longy School of Music Longy School of Music of Bard College is a private music school in Cambridge, Massachusetts associated with Bard College. Founded in 1915 as the Longy School of Music, it was one of the four independent degree-granting music schools in the Boston ...

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Schild, Rudolph Living people Harvard University faculty American astrophysicists Panspermia 1940 births