Stephen John Fossey is a British astronomer who is the director of UCL Observatory, part of

University College London University College London (Trade name, branded as UCL) is a Public university, public research university in London, England. It is a Member institutions of the University of London, member institution of the Federal university, federal Uni ...

(UCL). He discovered the nearby supernova

SN 2014J SN 2014J was a type Ia, Type-Ia supernova in Messier 82 (the 'Cigar Galaxy', M82) discovered in mid-January 2014. It was the closest Type-Ia supernova discovered for 42 years, and no subsequent supernova has been closer . The supernova was disc ...

and is one of the three editors of ''The Observatory'' magazine.

Education

Fossey studied at University College London (UCL), receiving his Bachelor of Science with Honours in 1983. This was followed in 1990 by a PhD in Astronomy (also at UCL). Fossey became a member of staff at ULO (University of London Observatory), which was later renamed UCL Observatory.

Research and publications

Fossey's research interests are in the

interstellar medium The interstellar medium (ISM) is the matter and radiation that exists in the outer space, space between the star systems in a galaxy. This matter includes gas in ionic, atomic, and molecular form, as well as cosmic dust, dust and cosmic rays. It f ...

exoplanets An exoplanet or extrasolar planet is a planet outside the Solar System. The first confirmed detection of an exoplanet was in 1992 around a pulsar, and the first detection around a main-sequence star was in 1995. A different planet, first detec ...

and

time-domain astronomy Time-domain astronomy is the study of how astronomical objects change with time. Said to have begun with Galileo's '' Letters on Sunspots'', the field has now naturally expanded to encompass variable objects beyond the Solar System. Temporal varia ...

. He has authored two dozen refereed scientific papers on these topics. His first scientific publication was a single-author letter in ''

Nature Nature is an inherent character or constitution, particularly of the Ecosphere (planetary), ecosphere or the universe as a whole. In this general sense nature refers to the Scientific law, laws, elements and phenomenon, phenomena of the physic ...

''. Along with Ingo Waldmann and David Kipping, Fossey discovered in 2009 that the exoplanet HD 80606b (previously known from

radial velocity The radial velocity or line-of-sight velocity of a target with respect to an observer is the rate of change of the vector displacement between the two points. It is formulated as the vector projection of the target-observer relative velocity ...

) transits its host star. In January 2014, Fossey discovered supernova

, the closest supernova for several decades. Fossey is an editor of ''The Observatory'' magazine.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Fossey, Steve Academics of University College London Alumni of University College London British physicists 21st-century British astronomers Living people Year of birth missing (living people)