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Department of Physics & Astronomy |  |
Gene G. ByrdProfessor Astronomy and astrophysics Dr. Byrd is interested in astronomy education, from elementary school through graduate student training. He conducts frequent astronomy teacher workshops and student viewing sessions. Dr. Byrd is primarily interested in research on the dynamics of galaxies and the properties of groups and clusters of galaxies. His primary tool in these studies is computer simulations, a kind of experimental astronomy. He has studied the dynamics and past history of the members of our local group of galaxies. Evidence for a hidden violent past has turned up with the possibility that some satellites of our galaxy once belonged to the other massive member of the group, M31, and that others may have merged with this massive galaxy. Even the layperson can appreciate the oddity of the spiral pattern in one galaxy that Dr. Byrd found in the course of his research, NGC 4622. This galaxy appears to be unique in having spiral arms unwinding in both clockwise and counter-clockwise directions in its disk. With Drs. Crocker and Buta of the University and Tarsh Freeman (Bevill State), Dr. Byrd has subsequently verified observationally the reality of the leading arm and simulated its origin via a plunging passage of a small companion galaxy. These simulations indicate that NGC 4622 may be made mostly of dark matter. Professor Byrd received his doctoral degree from the University of Texas in 1974. That same year, he joined the faculty of The University of Alabama. |