Frank James Low (November 23, 1933 – June 11, 2009) was an American solid state physicist who became a leader in the new field of infrared astronomy, after inventing the gallium doped germanium bolometer in 1961.
Based on his academic experiences, he came to the conclusion that the technology behind this thermometer could be integrated as the basis for a bolometer that could be used to measure the radiant energy coming from stars as infrared radiation, waves that occupy a portion of the electromagnetic spectrum whose wavelength is longer than for visible light (400–700 nm), but shorter than those of terahertz radiation (100 μm – 1 mm) or microwaves.
[1] Astronomers had been trying to find measures to detect infrared radiation for years, and Low went to the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia, in 1962 to test his bolometer, more sensitive to infrared than detectors previously in use on the Green Bank Telescope, the world's largest fully steerable radio telescope.
He proposed and joined the international project to build the Infrared Astronomy Satellite (IRAS), a project that included joint efforts from the United States, United Kingdom and the Netherlands, which made the first survey of the infrared sky from space, avoiding all atmospheric interference with observations, starting in 1983.
IRAS was able to discover in excess of 500,000 infrared sources, including many galaxies, and has discovered shells of debris surrounding stars that show the early stages of planetary formation, with debris similar to that later found as the Kuiper belt that encircles our Solar System beyond the orbit of Neptune.