Oral histories in meteoritics and planetary science: VII. Alastair G. W. Cameron

Abstract

In this interview, Alastair Cameron reecounts how he started his career as a nuclear physicist but taught himself astrophysics after he read a paper that required an astrophysical explanation for the presence of technetium in red giant stars. Subsequently, as new analytical data became available, he periodically updated the Suess-Urey tables of elemental abundances to enhance the value of the systematic approach they provided to understanding the individual processes of nucleosysthesis. Since many of these new data were based on analyses of carbonaceous chondrites, he taught himself meteoritics. In recent decades, Cameron has focused his research interests on problems such as the provenance of certain components of meteorites (calcium-aluminum-rich inclusions, FUN (fractionated and unknown nuclear) anomalous inclusions, amoeboid olivine aggregates, and presolar grains) that he believes to have formed in the supernova envelope prior to formation of the solar nebula, the origin of chondrules in the primitive solar nebula, and the origins of the solar system and of the Earth-Moon system. To investigate these subjects he has pioneered the use of advanced computer technology to make lengthy calculations of nucleosysthesis in complicated networks. After teaching courses and advising graduate students at several research institutes and colleges, Cameron served as a Professor of Astronomy at Harvard University from 1973 to 1997 when he was appoinetd to the Donald H. Menzel Research Professorship of Astrophysics. In 1994, The Meteoritical Society honored him with the Leonard Medal at its meeting in Prague, the Czech Republic.