Alan Hale Video | Interviews

Alan Hale (born March 7, 1958) is an American astronomer, known for his co-discovery of the Comet Hale-Bopp. Hale was born in Tachikawa, Japan in 1958, but he grew up in Alamogordo, New Mexico. He served in the United States Navy from 1976 to 1983, graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1980. His next job was at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) where he worked until 1986. While at the JPL, he worked as an engineering contractor for the Deep Space Network. While working as a contractor, he was involved with several projects involving spacecraft, including Voyager 2. After Voyager's... MORE

Alan Hale (born March 7, 1958) is an American astronomer, known for his co-discovery of the Comet Hale-Bopp. Hale was born in Tachikawa, Japan in 1958, but he grew up in Alamogordo, New Mexico. He served in the United States Navy from 1976 to 1983, graduating from the U.S. Naval Academy in 1980. His next job was at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) where he worked until 1986. While at the JPL, he worked as an engineering contractor for the Deep Space Network. While working as a contractor, he was involved with several projects involving spacecraft, including Voyager 2. After Voyager's encounter with Uranus, he left JPL to attend New Mexico State University in Las Cruces, earning his Ph.D. in astronomy in 1992. Facing a poor job market for astronomers, he founded the Southwest Institute for Space Research (now formally named the Earthrise Institute). Hale is an advocate for improved scientific literacy in society, better career opportunities for scientists, and individual responsibility for making a better society. After seeing some 200 comets, in 1995 Hale co-discovered Comet Hale-Bopp with a telescope in his driveway, noting the "fuzzy object" was not found in star charts of LESS