John Jefferies, the founding director of the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy (IfA), died on January 18 at the age of 98. Jefferies steered IfA to the forefront of scientific achievement and helped pioneer Maunakea astronomy.
“His legacy will forever illuminate the path for future astronomers,” said Doug Simons, director at IfA. “We owe a debt of gratitude to this trailblazer who shaped the astronomical landscape in Hawaiʻi and beyond. His commitment to advancing our understanding of the cosmos has left an indelible mark on IfA.”
UH recruited Jefferies to join its newly formed solar program in 1964. The revered astronomer is renowned for his theoretical breakthroughs in solar physics.
“In his scientific work, John Jefferies developed fundamentally new methods to describe the physics, which lead to the formation of spectral lines in the light of stars caused by the chemical elements. This laid the foundation for generations of scientists who study the physical properties of stars in the Milky Way and in galaxies further away,” said Rolf Kudritzki, a former IfA director who moved to Hawaiʻi from Berlin, drawn by inspiration from a trailblazing textbook written by Jefferies on hot and luminous stars.
Jefferies would go on to build up a rocket program to study the Sun and establish the IfA, which today is one of the largest university astronomy programs in the world, with observatories on Maunakea and Maunaloa on Hawaiʻi Island and Haleakalā on Maui.
“He had the remarkable vision of developing astronomy in Hawaiʻi at a time when the potential of the high mountains sites of Haleakalā and Maunakea was largely unrecognized,” said Alan Tokunaga, a UH astronomer emeritus who earned a national designation in 2022 for his contributions to astronomy.
Maunakea astronomy
During his 16-year tenure as director, Jefferies oversaw the development of a new generation of telescopes on Maunakea including the UH 2.2-meter telescope, Canada-France-Hawaiʻi Telescope, NASA Infrared Telescope Facility, United Kingdom Infrared Telescope, two 24-inch UH telescopes, the Caltech Submillimeter Observatory and the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. This led to Maunakea becoming the prime observatory site in the Northern Hemisphere.
Asteroid namesake
In 2022, a near-Earth asteroid was officially named in honor of Jefferies. First spotted by IfA’s Pan-STARRS 1 telescope atop Haleakalā in October 2011, asteroid (357243) Jefferies = 2002 OQ37 has an orbit about 2.5 times larger than Earth’s.
For more on Jefferies go to the IfA website.
