John A. Eddy

Academic career As a protege of Gordon Newkirk, Eddy worked with Princeton Professor Martin Schwarzschild in studying the solar corona with coronagraphs mounted on stratospheric balloons at altitudes of . Eddy completed his PhD Thesis at the University of Colorado at Boulder in December 1961 titled "The Stratospheric Solar Aureole". After obtaining his PhD, Eddy went into teaching, while maintaining an active research schedule to maintain his credentials. He studied spectral lines and worked on infrared spectroscopy. It also earned him criticism from archaeologists at first, although his work was eventually accepted, and later documented in National Geographic and as a guest on TV and radio programs.

As a teacher, he frequently used historical examples to show his students that not so long ago nobody knew more than they did about solar physics. This led him to do a lot of research in the history of his own field, particularly covering records of past eclipses and sunspot counts, whereupon he discovered the records of Edward Maunder and others demonstrating that there was indeed long term variability in solar activity. Eugene Parker of the University of Chicago, when promoting his theory of the existence of a solar wind, exposed Eddy to Maunder's work on sunspot records. After publication, his former employers at the HAO tried to hire him back. The interest resulting from "The Maunder Minimum" paper saw him giving over 50 talks a year around the world about his work and history.

In 1987, Eddy was awarded the Arctowski Medal by the National Academy of Sciences for studies in solar physics and solar-terrestrial relationships and specifically for "his demonstration of the existence and nature of solar variations of long term and the consequences of these changes for climate and for mankind."

Death Eddy died of cancer at his home in Tucson, Arizona on June 10, 2009.

Legacy NASA, along with the Cooperative Programs for the Advancement of Earth System Science (CPAESS) and the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) offer the Jack Eddy Postdoctoral Fellowship in his honor. The two-year fellowship matches early career PhDs with experienced scientists at various US institutions.

Honors

Fellow, American Association for the Advancement of Science, 1988. Arctowski Medal in Solar and Solar-Terrestrial Physics, National Academy of Sciences, 1987 Visiting Scientist, University of Durham, England, 1985, 1987. James Arthur Prize Lecture in Solar and Solar Terrestrial Physics, Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian, 1983. Research Fellow, National Geographic Society, 1975-1976. NCAR Award for Outstanding Performance in New Technology, 1973. Sigma Xi-RESA Boulder Scientist Award, 1965. National Academy of Sciences/National Research Council Post-Doctoral Fellow, 1962-1963.

Books

The New Solar Physics (Editor) Westview Press. 1978, 214 pp. A New Sun (The Solar Results from Skylab) NASA SP-402, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1979. 198 pp. The Ancient Sun (Co-Editor, with R.O. Pepin and R.B. Merrill) Pergamon Press, 1980, 581 pp. Mapping the Sky (Co-Editor, with S. DeBarbat, H.K. Eichhom and A.R. Upgren) Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1988, 512 pp. Global Changes in the Perspective of the Past (Co-Editor, with H. Oeschger) John Wiley & Sons, Chichester, 1993, 383 pp.. The Sun, the Earth and Near-Earth Space: A Guide to the Sun-Earth System; NASA NP-2009-1-066-GSFC, U.S., 2009, 311 pp.