Hey, James Stanley (1909–2000)

English physicist whose work in radar led to pioneering research in radioastronomy. He discovered that large sunspots were powerful ultra-shortwave radio transmitters, and pinpointed a radio source in the Milky Way.

Hey was born in the Lake District and studied at Manchester. From 1940 to 1952 he was on the staff of an Army Operational Research Group. He then became a research scientist at the Royal Radar Establishment.

In February 1942, during World War II, the British early-warning coastal-defence radar became severely jammed. At first the jamming was attributed to enemy countermeasures, but Hey, noting that the interference began as the Sun rose and ceased as it set, concluded that the spurious radio radiation was associated with a large solar flare that had just been reported.

Intense radio sources had already been detected in the Milky Way, notably in the constellations Cygnus, Taurus, and Cassiopeia. In 1946 Hey and his colleagues announced that they had narrowed down the location of the radiation source in Cygnus to Cygnus A.

Using radio, Hey's team also noted that they could detect and follow meteors more accurately than ever before.