astronomy

Peter R. McCullough

Peter R. McCullough is a astronomy topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Peter R. McCullough rather than just read about it. In short: Peter R. McCullough (; born August 20, 1964) is an American astronomer, founder of the XO Project and discoverer of extrasolar transiting planets, such as XO-1b.

Key takeaways

Peter R. McCullough belongs to astronomy; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Peter R. McCullough to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Peter R. McCullough from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Peter R. McCullough (; born August 20, 1964) is an American astronomer, founder of the XO Project and discoverer of extrasolar transiting planets, such as XO-1b. Soon after the U.S. declassification of the laser beacon adaptive optics technique in 1991, he identified dusty disks around newborn stars, later referred to as proplyds, in observations of the Orion Nebula made with the Starfire Optical Range. Astronomers John Gaustad, McCullough, and David Van Buren with engineer Wayne Rosing mapped the entire southern sky in the hydrogen alpha transition with sufficient sensitivity for decontamination of the Milky Way from the cosmic microwave background. McCullough's modification to the Stromgren sphere model often produces more realistic results than the original.

Biography

Education McCullough attended public primary school in Massachusetts and Athens Drive High School in North Carolina. In summers between his undergraduate years, he interned at the Wind River National Outdoor Leadership School, the Palo Alto CA police department, Weyerhauser, and the National Radio Astronomy Observatory's Very Large Array. McCullough received a Bachelor of Science in physics in 1986 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. At the University of California, Berkeley, he earned a PhD in astrophysics in 1993.

Employment McCullough was a Hubble postdoctoral fellow, and then an assistant professor in the Astronomy Department of the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Since 2002 he has been employed by the Space Telescope Science Institute. He also works on the science team of the Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite. In 2009-2010 he was a visiting scientist at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory and the Institut d'astrophysique de Paris.

Awards and fellowships McCullough has received numerous awards throughout his career. His undergraduate education was supported entirely by merit scholarships. NASA granted him a graduate student researcher award and a Hubble postdoctoral fellowship in 1993. He was a recipient of the Sloan Fellowship. In recognition of his university teaching and research, the U.S. National Science Foundation granted him a CAREER award and the Research Corporation selected him as a Cottrell Scholar.

See also List of stars with confirmed planets

References

Illustrations

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Peter R. McCullough

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Peter R. McCullough claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In astronomy, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Peter R. McCullough before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Peter R. McCullough ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Peter R. McCullough

In research: Peter R. McCullough appears in astronomy research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Peter R. McCullough in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Peter R. McCullough is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1964 births, American astronomers, Athens Drive High School alumni, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Peter R. McCullough outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

Ask Teacher Smith questions about this articleOpens your AI tutor with a question about “Peter R. McCullough” →

Affiliate

Preply — study more efficiently by working with a personal tutor. 50% off.

How to study Peter R. McCullough in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Peter R. McCullough means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Peter R. McCullough out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Peter R. McCullough in simple terms?

Peter R. McCullough (; born August 20, 1964) is an American astronomer, founder of the XO Project and discoverer of extrasolar transiting planets, such as XO-1b.

Why does Peter R. McCullough matter?

Because it connects several astronomy ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Peter R. McCullough?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Peter R. McCullough.