Michael Rowan-Robinson is an astronomer

Astronomer

An astronomer is a scientist who studies celestial bodies such as planets, stars and galaxies.Historically, astronomy was more concerned with the classification and description of phenomena in the sky, while astrophysics attempted to explain these phenomena and the differences between them using...

 and astrophysicist. He was educated at Pembroke College, Cambridge

Pembroke College, Cambridge

Pembroke College is a constituent college of the University of Cambridge, England.The college has over seven hundred students and fellows, and is the third oldest college of the university. Physically, it is one of the university's larger colleges, with buildings from almost every century since its...

 and is Professor of Astrophysics

Astrophysics

Astrophysics is the branch of astronomy that deals with the physics of the universe, including the physical properties of celestial objects, as well as their interactions and behavior...

 and until May 2007 was Head of the Astrophysics Group at Imperial College London

Imperial College London

Imperial College London is a public research university located in London, United Kingdom, specialising in science, engineering, business and medicine...

. From 1981 to 1982, he gave public lectures as professor of astronomy at Gresham College

Gresham College

Gresham College is an institution of higher learning located at Barnard's Inn Hall off Holborn in central London, England. It was founded in 1597 under the will of Sir Thomas Gresham and today it hosts over 140 free public lectures every year within the City of London.-History:Sir Thomas Gresham,...

. He retired as president of the Royal Astronomical Society

Royal Astronomical Society

The Royal Astronomical Society is a learned society that began as the Astronomical Society of London in 1820 to support astronomical research . It became the Royal Astronomical Society in 1831 on receiving its Royal Charter from William IV...

 in 2008.

Research interests

Rowan-Robinson's research interests include: The Spitzer Space Telescope

Spitzer Space Telescope

The Spitzer Space Telescope , formerly the Space Infrared Telescope Facility is an infrared space observatory launched in 2003...

 SWIRE project; The European Large Area ISO Survey; The UK SCUBA Survey (see James Clerk Maxwell Telescope

James Clerk Maxwell Telescope

The James Clerk Maxwell Telescope is a submillimetre-wavelength telescope at Mauna Kea Observatory in Hawaii. Its primary mirror is 15 metres across: it is the largest astronomical telescope that operates in submillimetre wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum...

); The IRAS

IRAS

The Infrared Astronomical Satellite was the first-ever space-based observatory to perform a survey of the entire sky at infrared wavelengths....

 PSC Redshift Survey ; the Herschel Space Observatory

Herschel Space Observatory

The Herschel Space Observatory is a European Space Agency space observatory sensitive to the far infrared and submillimetre wavebands. It is the largest space telescope ever launched, carrying a single mirror of in diameter....

 SPIRE instrument; the Planck Surveyor

Planck Surveyor

Planck is a space observatory of the European Space Agency and designed to observe the anisotropies of the cosmic microwave background over the entire sky, at a high sensitivity and angular resolution...

 HFI.

Hoyle Medal

Rowan-Robinson was awarded the 2008 Hoyle Medal by the Institute of Physics

Institute of Physics

The Institute of Physics is a scientific charity devoted to increasing the practice, understanding and application of physics. It has a worldwide membership of around 40,000....

 for his pioneering research in infrared and submillimetre astronomy

Astronomy

Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

, and observational cosmology

Cosmology

Cosmology is the discipline that deals with the nature of the Universe as a whole. Cosmologists seek to understand the origin, evolution, structure, and ultimate fate of the Universe at large, as well as the natural laws that keep it in order...

.

Asteroid 4599 Rowan

Asteroid 4599

4599 Rowan

4599 Rowan is a main belt asteroid with an orbital period of 1969.5290872 days . The asteroid was discovered on September 5, 1985.-References:...

, discovered in 1985 by H. Debehogne at the European Southern Observatory

European Southern Observatory

The European Southern Observatory is an intergovernmental research organisation for astronomy, supported by fifteen countries...

, has been renamed "Rowan" to honor Michael Rowan-Robinson. The credit notes that, even though Rowan-Robinson's largest contributions have been in extragalactic astronomy, he was able to use data from IRAS

IRAS

The Infrared Astronomical Satellite was the first-ever space-based observatory to perform a survey of the entire sky at infrared wavelengths....

 to set a limit on the number of undiscovered Jupiter

Jupiter

Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the largest planet within the Solar System. It is a gas giant with mass one-thousandth that of the Sun but is two and a half times the mass of all the other planets in our Solar System combined. Jupiter is classified as a gas giant along with Saturn,...

-like planets beyond the orbit of Neptune

Neptune

Neptune is the eighth and farthest planet from the Sun in the Solar System. Named for the Roman god of the sea, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter and the third largest by mass. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 times...

.

Books

His books include:

• Universe (Longman, 1990) ISBN 978-0582044388
• Ripples in the Cosmos (A View Behind the Scenes of the New Cosmology)
• The Nine Numbers of the Cosmos (OUP 2001) ISBN 978-0192862167
• Cosmology (OUP 2004) ISBN 978-0198527473