John V. Evans (astronomer)
astronomer
John V. Evans (born 5 July 1933) is a British-American radio astronomer born in Manchester, England. He obtained his PhD at the University of Manchester, and has been a professor at the Lincoln Laboratory of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology since 1960.
In 1975, Evans received the Appleton Prize.
Evans showed how long-period lunar echo fading could be used to measure ionospheric electron density. William Smith used Long Michelson interferometer observations of sources to do the same. He also demonstrated that lunar scattering was limb-darkened. With G. N. Taylor, he bounced radar echoes off Venus in September 1959. He has performed radar studies of the Moon, Venus, etc. He also worked on detecting Sputnik 1 with the Jodrell Bank. He co-authored the classic textbook Radar Astronomy with T. Hagfors.
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