Black Holes: Gravity's Relentless Pull

The software for the site is also freely available from STScI for use in museum kiosk exhibits. This version won a MUSE award from the American Association of Museums. Scroll to the bottom of this page for excerpts of some reviews of the web site.

Er is nu ook een Nederlandstalige versie van de website!

NASA's Hubble Shows Milky Way is Destined for Head-on Collision with Andromeda Galaxy

• Science Papers (I, II, and III)
• NASA Press Conference (youtube video; 05/31/2012; 51 min.)
• NASA Press Release
• STScI Press Release
• Selected Media Coverage

Biography

I obtained M.Sc. degrees in astronomy and mathematics at Leiden University, and subsequently a PhD degree in astronomy for a thesis entitled Velocity Profiles and Dynamical Modeling of Galaxies .

NASA then awarded me a Hubble Fellowship to come to the United States to continue my research, where I worked for three years at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. There I became a frequent user of the Hubble Space Telescope.

I then moved to the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) in Baltimore as the Institute Fellow (later renamed Giacconi Fellowship).

I stayed at STScI, where I am now a tenured Astronomer on the scientific staff. I am also an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Physics and Astronomy of the nearby Johns Hopkins University.

At STScI I have led teams responsible for the calibration and user support of the Advanced Camera for Surveys (ACS) and Wide Field Planatery Camera 2 (WFPC2) instruments on the Hubble Space Telescope, and for issues related to the telescope structure, focus, and Wavefront Sensing and Control on the future James Webb Space Telescope mission (to be launched in 2018).

I am an expert on the structure and dynamics of galaxies and stellar systems in the nearby Universe, and on the central black holes that they often contain. I have authored more than two hundred papers in scientific journals, books and other publications. My research and the images that I have obtained with the Hubble Space Telescope have been discussed on television and radio, and in newspapers, magazines and museum exhibits around the world.

I am a member of the International Astronomical Union, the American Astronomical Society and the Dutch Astronomers Club.

Research Papers and Presentations

• ADS Database Search
• ADS Streamlined Search
• arXiv Database Search

• ADS Citation statistics

• Slides of Talks (since 2000)

• STScI Archived Webcasts (search by name)
• ADS Multimedia Search

Selected Awards & Honors

• 1993: Leiden University C.J. Kok Prize
• 1994: NASA Hubble Fellowship
• 1997: STScI Institute Fellowship
• 2002: AURA Science Award
• 2003: Immigrant Achievement Award
• 2005: Top Prize Pirelli Awards for Black Hole web site
• 2007: MUSE Award for Black Hole Interactive Museum Kiosk
• 2007-2011: Three NASA Group Achivement Awards

• Lead investigator on a career total of 4 million dollars in NASA research grant funding
• 2x Lead investigator on live televised NASA Press Conferences (e.g., 2012)
• 5x Lead investigator on NASA/STScI Press Releases (also 6x as Co-Investigator; see list below)
• 3x Lead investigator on an Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) (also 6x as Co-Investigator; see list below)

Research Highlights and Media Reports

• 1997: A black hole in the nearby galaxy M32
• 1998: Dust disk around a black hole in galaxy NGC 7052 (APOD) (Hubblesite)
• 1998: The Hubble Deep Field South (APOD) (Hubblesite)
• 2000: Weighing black holes with gas kinematics
• 2000:Looking deep into galaxies
• 2002: Structure of the Large Magellanic Cloud
• 2002: Searching for Black Holes in Globular star clusters (Hubblesite)
• 2002: Space's black holes yield new secrets to scientists's gaze
• 2002: The Binary Supermassive Black Hole in NGC 6240 (APOD)
• 2005: De toekomst van de Hubble Space Telescoop
• 2006: Black Holes: Gravity's Relentless Pull (Hubblesite)
• 2007: Wrinkles in spacetime may reveal black holes
• 2007: The Proper Motion of the Magellanic Clouds
• 2007: Magellanic Clouds Are First-Time Visitors
• 2007: Stellar Fireworks Are Ablaze in Galaxy NGC 4449 (APOD) (Hubblesite)
• 2007: Hubble Finds 'Dorian Gray' Galaxy ( I Zw 18) (APOD) (Hubblesite)
• 2008: Hubble Resolves Puzzle about Loner Starburst Galaxy (NGC 1569) (APOD) (Hubblesite)
• 2010: Mystery Medium - Center of Omega Cen
• 2010: Hubble Data Used to Look 10,000 Years into the Future (Hubblesite)
• 2010: Milky Way Sidelined in Galactic Tug-of-War
• 2012: New Image Captures 'Stealth Merger' of Dwarf Galaxies (APOD)
• 2012: Tarantula Nebula: Turbulent Star-making Region (APOD) (Hubblesite)
• 2012: Milky Way on Collision Course with Andromeda Galaxy (APOD) (Hubblesite)
• 2012: Hubble Watches Star Clusters on a Collision Course (Hubblesite)
• 2012: Galaxy Grande: Milky Way May Be More Massive Than Thought
• 2013: Stellar Motions in Outer Halo Shed New Light on Milky Way Evolution (Hubblesite)

• 2002: Space.com Black Hole Interviews
  • How do black holes form?
  • How are black holes detected?
  • How do black holes warp space?
  • Supermassive black holes?
  • Warping Space and Time
• 2003: NASA TV Promotional Clip
• 2010: Omega Centauri: Delving into an Archeological Fossil of the Universe
• 2012: Scientists Reflect on Expected Collision Between the Milky Way and the Andromeda Galaxy
• 2012: Milky-M31 collision NASA Press Conference and TV coverage

Selected Popular Articles authored:

• Black holes (short text for encyclopedia)
• Superzware zwarte gaten in actieve sterrenstelsels (article in Dutch)
• Active galaxies and black holes (short article)
• Black holes and quasars (Scientific American `Ask the Experts')

• Hubble Space Telescope pictures
• Astronomy Picture of the Day
• Atlas of the Universe

General Interest

• My family roots can be traced back to the village of Wateringen in The Netherlands some 500 years ago. For details, see my page (in Dutch, with Google translation into English available):
  

  Geschiedenis en Genealogie van de Familie van der Marel

• I used to be an avid runner, and completed nine marathons. See my running page for details.

• I used to play chess in my youth. With the St. Adelbert high school team we captured the Dutch National Championship in 1983.

• I am fan of progressive rock music. If you are interested, try out one of these websites: progstreaming, progarchives, or Dutch Progressive Rock Pages.

• I support the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. Please consider doing the same.

  
  

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  Last modified March 4, 2013.
  Roeland van der Marel, marel@stsci.edu.
  Copyright Notice.
  

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