Author Topic: ~ Famous Astronomers ~  (Read 5703 times)

Offline MysteRy

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~ Famous Astronomers ~
« on: August 14, 2014, 01:46:19 PM »
Famous Astronomers

Throughout history, mankind has wondered what is beyond our own planet. They have gazed up at the stars and made some significant and important discoveries related to the field of astronomy. On our list below, you will find great names listed in order of popularity, like Copernicus, Hipparchus, and Ptolemy, among others. Read about the most famous astronomers of all time and their contributions.



Annie Jump Cannon



Born: Dec 11, 1863 in Dover, Delaware

Died: Apr 13, 1941 (at age 77)

Nationality: American

Famous For: Stellar classification

Awards: Henry Draper Medal (1931)

Annie Jump Cannon was a Delaware-born astronomer who discovered at least 300 variable stars. These are stars that change their brightness or magnitude over time. These discoveries made Cannon a vital part of the evolution of stellar classification. She also discovered five new stars and a double star and analyzed over a quarter of a million stars to show the relationship between their spectral type, brightness, and distribution.

She also compiled a bibliography of 100,000 references to variable stars. In 1896 she joined the staff of the Harvard Observatory.

Cannon’s Early Years

Annie Jump Cannon was born in Dover, Delaware, the daughter of a state senator and a mother who kindled Cannon’s interest in the stars. She attended Wilmington Conference Academy and then went to Wellesley College, one of the so-called “seven sisters” colleges for women. While there, Cannon contracted scarlet fever, which destroyed much of her hearing. Still, she graduated from Wellesley and went to Europe to experience the 1892 solar eclipse.

When Cannon returned, she found few opportunities available to her, both because she was a woman and because of her partial deafness. Finally, after the death of her mother, Cannon wrote to her physics teacher at Wellesley and asked if there was the possibility of employment for her. Her old professor, Sarah Whiting, hired Cannon on as her assistant. Cannon took advantage of her position to audit graduate courses. She was especially enthusiastic about the astronomy course.

Cannon’s Collaboration with Pickering

Cannon studied spectroscopy, which is a science that deals with how radiant energy and matter interact. In those days, however, it was the study of how visible light could be separated into its component colors when it was passed through a prism. Cannon also took up photography, which was a new and fascinating art form at the time. She took graduate courses in astronomy and physics and entered Radcliffe College so she could use Harvard’s famous observatory. While there, she caught the attention of Edward C. Pickering, who was the observatory’s director. He was impressed with her knowledge and hired her on as an assistant in the observatory.

Classifying the Stars

Pickering had a coterie of female assistants known as Pickering’s women, or conversely, Pickering’s Harem. He hired these women to map the stars and complete what was called the Draper Catalogue. The goal of this catalogue was to map every star in the sky that had a magnitude up to +9.

These stars were to be classified by their spectra, which at the time was difficult. Pickering picked women for this task because he thought they were more efficient and patient than men and he knew that women also worked for less pay.

When a dispute arose as to how to classify the stars, Cannon created a compromise that divided the stars into the now famous OBAFGKM classification that is based on their temperatures. Cannon kept up her work in stellar classification for over 40 years and died in 1941 after she had been named the William C. Bond Astronomer at Harvard. She also was the only sole woman to be honored with the Henry Draper Award.
« Last Edit: August 14, 2014, 01:49:38 PM by MysteRy »

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Re: ~ Famous Astronomers ~
« Reply #1 on: August 14, 2014, 01:52:52 PM »
Carl Sagan



Born: Nov 9, 1934 in Brooklyn, New York, U.S.

Died: Dec 20, 1996 (at age 62) in Seattle, Washington, U.S.

Nationality: American

Famous For: Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI), Cosmos: A Personal Voyage, Cosmos

Awards: NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal (1977), Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction (1978), Oersted Medal (1990)

Carl Sagan, an astronomer, cosmologist, and astrophysicist, was born in Brooklyn, New York, in on November 9, 1934. He spent most of his career as a professor at Cornell University where he also directed other studies. During his time, he made over 600 scientific publications and he also wrote and edited more than 20 scientific books. In addition, he advocated scientific skeptical inquiries and methods, promoted and pioneered exobiology, and promoted the SETI (Search for Extra Terrestrial Intelligence).

Early Life

Sagan graduated from the University of Chicago where he studied extraterrestrial intelligence and planets. Before then, he graduated from Rahway High School in New Jersey in 1951. Carl was raised with his sister, Carol, in Brooklyn’s Bensonhurst neighborhood and his father, Samuel Sagan, was a Russian immigrant worker in the United States. Even at a young age, Sagan was so eager to become a scientist. This idea was driven by a science book he read about how the sun was close to the earth.

Sagan’s Career

Carl Sagan was an astronomer who excelled at explaining the most complicated ideas in a simplified manner that was easy to understand. He was once described by Isaac Asimov as one of the only two people he had ever met with higher intelligence than his.

While attending the Chicago University, Sagan participated in the Ryerson Astronomical Society in 1954 and received a bachelor of arts in “nothing,” as he described it. In 1955, he received a bachelor of science in physics and in 1956, he obtained a master’s in physics before earning his astronomy and astrophysics Ph.D. in 1960.

Sagan’s Contributions to Astronomy

Besides his popularity in science books and the award winning Cosmos TV series, Carl made tremendous contributions to the field of astronomy. In the 1950s, he helped design mechanical devices that were used on space flights. He also published two crucial theories that were confirmed by space flights.

One of Sagan’s theories was that the planet Venus was very hot. The other one stated that Mars did not have a season where plants could be grown, contrary to what other scientists had believed at the time. He explained that the dark areas of Mars that were thought to be plants were simply gigantic dust storms in the Martian atmosphere.

Sagan was also involved in efforts of the Americans trying to explore the other planets in the solar system. He was one of the members of the Mariner-Nine to Mars voyage, which was the first vehicle to orbit a different planet. He also helped in choosing the landing area for Viking One and Two, which were the first two vehicles to land on Mars. In addition to these, he worked on Pioneer Two, which was the first space vehicle that was to investigate Jupiter, and the Pioneer 11 which flew past Saturn and Jupiter.

Sagan’s Death

Before his death on December 20, 1996, Carl Sagan served as the Duncan David Professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences as well as the Director of Laboratory for Planetary Science Studies at the University of Cornell. He died of pneumonia in Seattle, Washington.

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Re: ~ Famous Astronomers ~
« Reply #2 on: August 14, 2014, 01:55:47 PM »
Caroline Herschel



Born: Mar 16, 1750 in Hanover, Germany

Died: Jan 9, 1848 (at age 97) in Hanover, Germany

Nationality: German

Famous For: discovery of comets

Awards: Astronomical Society (1828), Prussian Gold Medal for Science (1846)

Caroline Herschel was an astronomer in the late 18th and early 19th centuries who lived in both England and Germany. Her older brother was the renowned astronomer Sir William Herschel, and the two siblings worked in close partnership for a number of years.

Caroline was particularly known for discovering a number of comets, one of which was named after her. Her personal life was sometimes difficult due to the after effects of typhus, which she contracted at age 10 and which severely stunted her growth.

Early Life

Herschel was born in Germany, and spent her entire childhood there. In her early 20s, she accompanied her brother to Bath, England, where William had obtained a job teaching music. Caroline proved herself to be an impressive singer, to the extent that she acquired a considerable reputation and was asked to perform publicly. However, she was uncomfortable with Bath society and was somewhat isolated socially.

When William began studying astronomy as a hobby he fit around his musical commitments, Caroline quickly joined him. At first, the pair worked on the development of more powerful telescopes. Despite her typhus-ravaged body, she possessed immense dexterity, which allowed her to set up telescopes effectively.

Caroline also worked as a record-keeper and organizer, categorizing her brother’s copious notes. This work increased her own levels of interest in astronomy and by 1782, she was performing her own observations.

Caroline’s Contributions to Astronomy

After William had advised her to spend time learning to understand astronomy rather than simply observing it, Caroline Herschel discovered a number of comets. She also made history in that she was the first woman to be paid for her scientific work, something that was rare in the 1780s, even for men.

However, her brother’s marriage in 1788 reputedly upset her and led to their partnership becoming strained, eventually breaking down altogether. Science benefited from her domestic problems, since she threw herself into increasingly independent research and observation.

Most of Caroline Herschel’s observations in the 1780s were carried out with a 27-inch Newtonian telescope. With this she discovered M110, the Andromeda Galaxy’s second known companion. This was probably her most significant discovery during this period.

In addition, she discovered eight comets, five of which were certainly unknown to any previous astronomer. In 1798, at the recommendation of her brother, Caroline drew up a new star catalog, which the Royal Society published in 1798 as a considerable improvement to John Flamsteed’s previous catalog.

Caroline’s Later Years and Honors

After William died in 1822, Caroline moved back to Germany, although she continued her astronomical work in Hanover for several years. In 1828, she became the first woman to be awarded the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society and would remain the only female recipient of this honor for more than 170 years.

Herschel was given an honorary membership of the society in 1835. She lived into her late 90s, with the King of Prussia bestowing his own Gold Medal on her in 1846 for her work in the cataloging and categorization of nebulae. Herschel died in Hanover on January 9, 1848. A small asteroid and a crater on the moon are both named in her honor.

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Re: ~ Famous Astronomers ~
« Reply #3 on: August 14, 2014, 01:59:17 PM »
Charles Messier



Born: Jun 26, 1730 in Badonviller, France

Died: Apr 12, 1817 (at age 86) in Paris, France

Nationality: French

Famous For: Messier catalog

Awards: Cross of the Legion of Honor

Charles Messier came to be known across the scientific community of Europe as “The Ferret of Comets.” That is because as a French astronomer, he discovered at least 20 comets, a remarkable feat considering that most famous astronomers of the day were lucky to find just one.

Messier was eager to discover as many comets as he could, partially because they were of scientific interest, but he also hoped they would provide him with fame and notoriety. Comets are generally named after their discoverers, as in the most famous case, Halley’s Comet, named for English astronomer Edmund Halley.

Messier’s Childhood

Charles Messier was born in Badonviller, France, in 1730, one of 12 children of Nicolas Messier and Françoise B. Grandblaise. By the time he was 11, his father had died and six of his siblings would not survive to adulthood. Charles Messier’s youth was a “life of poverty,” said writer and astronomer David Levy in his book, Cosmic Discoveries: The Wonders of Astronomy

Messier’s First Comet Sighting

With only a basic education in reading, writing, and arithmetic, the young Charles Messier was a youth without parents and without prospects. But 1744 was the year of the appearance of a spectacular comet of six tails, easily visible to the naked eye across the Northern Hemisphere. At the time, Messier was only 14 years old and the comet filled him with a sense of wonder.

Thus, as a penniless youth, Charles made his way on foot to Paris where he presented himself to a Parisian astronomer by the name of Delambres. He was hired as a lowly assistant to keep observatory records. Because of his excellent spelling skills and his “neat handwriting,” he was able to get his foot in the door.

The job with Delambres led to another position with another astronomer. He learned the science of observational astronomy “on the job,” and his long career as an astronomer had begun.

Messier’s Catalogue

Messier’s subsequent obsession with discovering new comets led him to compile a list of astronomical objects which remains one of the most significant documents in the field today. The 110 objects listed in the “Messier Catalog” have been a useful tool and an icon of astronomy for almost three centuries.

The Messier Objects are what appear to be fuzzy splotches of light in the deep night sky as seen through the most powerful telescopes of the day. These objects are actually star clusters, distant galaxies (such as the Andromeda Galaxy), and nebulae, or clouds of interstellar gas.

What motivated Messier to make a catalog of these objects is the fact that they could easily be mistaken for comets that were still a far distance from earth. Messier was tired of getting the “false alarm” of believing he had spotted a new comet whenever his telescope swept across the night sky and spotted a distant galaxy, cluster, or nebula.

Messier’s Lasting Influence

Creating a catalog of where these objects were located saved astronomers a great deal of time. Over the years, amateur astronomers have considered it a point of honor to spot as many or all of the Messier Objects with their backyard telescopes. In fact, many astronomy enthusiasts still do this today.

Messier was perhaps not a superior theoretician or mathematician, but his observational work earned him enormous respect and a place in astronomical history. A crater on the moon and an asteroid are named in honor of him.

In his lifetime, Charles Messier was elected to three of most prestigious scientific organizations in Europe: The British Royal Society, the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, and the French Academy of Sciences. He died at the age of 86 in 1817.

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Re: ~ Famous Astronomers ~
« Reply #4 on: August 14, 2014, 02:03:06 PM »
Christiaan Huygens



Born: Apr 14, 1629 in the Hague, Dutch Republic

Died: Jul 8, 1695 (at age 65) in the Hague, Dutch Republic

Nationality: Dutch

Famous For: Titan, explaining the rings of Saturn, centrifugal force, Huygens-Fresnel principle, wave theory, and many others

Christiaan Huygens was a natural philosopher and mathematician from the Netherlands. He was notably known as a physicist, astronomer, and horologist. Christiaan was a dominant natural philosopher in his time and his work was composed of telescopic studies on the rings of Saturn, the creation of the pendulum clock, investigations of timekeeping and the discovery of Saturn’s moon, Titan.

Huygens’ Early Life

Christiaan was born in 1629 as the second of five children. His father taught him at home until when he was 16 years old and he was later sent to study mathematics and law at the University of Leiden. He mostly wrote his name as Hugens.

Career Life

At an early age, Christiaan started working in advanced math by trying to disprove theories that had been established by ancient Greeks in geometry. He was interested in telescopes and astronomy and spent a lot of time designing methods to improve mechanical and optic performance of the telescopes.

His achievement in astronomy was reported in his book entitled Systema Saturnium, which was published in 1659. In this book, he noted the discovery of the rings around planet Saturn and his observations about the planets, the moon, and Orion Nebula.

Christiaan’s keen interest in the field of astronomy led him to measure time and other matters that relate to mechanical physics. He was involved in the 17th controversy with Vibiani as to the real creator of the pendulum clock, which he had presented as an accomplishment of the Dutch Science in his book, Horologium Oscillatorium. This may have been considered Christiaan’s finest efforts since he also suggested vital principles of classical physics like centrifugal force and gravity in a vacuum.

Huygens’ Reputation Builds

In the mid 17th century, Christiaan wrote a small piece on the calculus of probabilities pegged on theories of Fermat and Pascal. He spent a few years in England doing this. His reputation as a scientist and a scholar became known worldwide and he was given a pension by King Louis XIV to move to Paris. While in France, his works on timepieces continued to the point of an inclusion of balance springs in order to increase accuracy and reliability.

The very first watch made using this principle was completed in 1675 and was presented to Christiaan’s sponsor, King Louis. In 1681, Christiaan went back to Holland and began constructing optical lenses containing very big focal lengths. These were later given to the Royal Society in London where they remain to date. He perfected his lens grinding skills and eventually created the achromatic eyepiece which bears his name and is used worldwide today.

He published a book entitled Traite de la Lumiere in 1690 in which he suggested a theory explaining the wave behavior of light. He claimed that light waves travel on an invisible ether that fills the void throughout space and air.

Huygens’ Death

Christiaan Huygens died in the Hague in 1695 after suffering from depressive illness. He was laid to rest in the Grote Kerk.

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Re: ~ Famous Astronomers ~
« Reply #5 on: September 15, 2014, 07:41:19 PM »
Clyde Tombaugh



Born: Feb 4, 1906 in Streator, Illinois

Died: Jan 17, 1997 (at age 90) in Las Cruces, New Mexico, U.S.

Nationality: American

Famous For: Discovery of Pluto

Pluto used to be the ninth plant in the solar system until it was demoted to a dwarf planet several years ago. Its demotion happened less than a decade after the death of its discoverer, Clyde Tombaugh, who died in 1997.

Tombaugh discovered the small, rocky, frigid planet while he was studying photographic plates with a blink microscope at the Lowell Observatory in 1930. It was just where Percival Lowell had predicted it would be some 15 years earlier.

Tombaugh’s Early Life

Born in Streator, Illinois, Tombaugh and his family moved to Burdette, Kansas, when he was still young. Unable to go to college because he was needed on his family’s farm, Tombaugh was largely self-taught. When he was still young, he began to build his own telescopes and was hired to work at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, which was and still is run by members of the Lowell family. He stayed at the Observatory from 1929 to 1945. During his time there, Tombaugh attended the University of Kansas. He worked at the observatory during his summer breaks.

Tombaugh’s Discoveries

At Lowell Observatory, Tombaugh was given the job of actively searching for Pluto. He used a 13-inch astrograph, which is a telescope that takes pictures of the stars. The blink microscope helped him tell the different images apart and compare them.

A moving object would change position while the stars remained motionless. Though he eventually discovered Pluto this way on February 18, 1930, Tombaugh found many asteroids in the meantime. The first one he found he named after his daughter, Annette. He was fond of naming asteroids after members of his family.

Besides the hundreds of asteroids Tombaugh discovered, he also discovered variable stars, which change in brightness over time. He also found clusters of stars and galaxies and at least one supercluster of galaxies. He also claimed to have seen UFOs in New Mexico. Though he prided himself on his scientific objectivity, he could not rule out the possibility that these UFOs had an extraterrestrial origin. He became part of a project that searched for near-earth satellites, but claimed that the search, in the end, was unsuccessful.

Naming Pluto

Though he discovered it, Tombaugh actually did not name the planet Pluto. Before it was discovered it was given the placeholder name of Planet X. The name Pluto was suggested by an 11-year-old English girl named Venetia Burney. The name fit because Pluto is the name of the Roman god who rules the underworld. The name was also a tribute to Percival Lowell’s initials. The name became official on the May 1, 1930. Tombaugh’s wife Patricia claimed he would have been disappointed by Pluto’s demotion, but would have accepted it eventually.

Death and Launch into Space

Tombaugh died in Las Cruces, New Mexico, on January 17, 1997. He was 90 years old. But this is not the end of his story. He was cremated and a container holding some of his ashes is in the New Horizons spacecraft, which was launched on January 19, 2006, with the goal of surveying Pluto and five of its moons. The spacecraft is supposed to reach the Pluto system around July 14, 2015.

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Re: ~ Famous Astronomers ~
« Reply #6 on: September 15, 2014, 07:44:27 PM »
Edmund Halley



Born: Nov 8, 1656 in Haggerston, Shoreditch, London, England

Died: Jan 14, 1742 (at age 85) in Greenwich, London, England

Nationality: English, British

Famous For: Halley’s Comet

Edmund Halley was an English astronomer and mathematician who was brought up in a wealthy family. His father was a soap maker from the Derbyshire family at a time when the demand for soap was increasing in Europe. Although the father lost a lot in the 1666 Great Fire of London, he could still afford his son’s education and also pay a private tutor. After joining St. Paul’s School, Halley’s true astronomical talent started showing.

Halley’s Early Years

At the age of 17, Halley joined Queens College in Oxford with astronomical expertise practiced by the assortment of instruments his father had bought him. He reinforced his talent by working with John Flamsteed, who was the Astronomer Royal in 1675. His work encompassed observations at Greenwich and Oxford.

During his Oxford studies in June 1676, Halley observed an occultation of Mars and since then proposed to move to the Southern Hemisphere to carry the same observations. This idea was modestly financed by his father as well as King Charles II.

The King personally issued a letter to the East India Company to take Halley and an assistant to St. Helena. Also the president of the Royal Society, Brouncker, and the founder of Royal Observatory, Jonas Moore, supported Halley’s endeavors. This marked the start of his road to success.

Halley’s Astronomical Works

At the Island of St. Helena, Halley recorded celestial latitudes and longitudes. When he returned back home in 1678, he had observed up to 341 stars including a passage of Mercury along the sun’s disk. His published catalogue was the first one to contain southern stars with telescopically locations. As such, he was promoted to be a fellow of the Royal Society. In his service, he was sent to Danzig to resolve a dispute between Havelius and Hooke concerning observation accuracy. Hooke sued Havelius for making inference without using the telescope. Halley’s verdict was that the observations were accurate.

Nevertheless, Halley’s chief motive was to explain planetary motion using celestial mechanics extended from Isaac Newton’s studies. Together with Robert Hooke, they made impressive progress, but with no solid observed orbits that could support their findings.

Halley’s Work with Comets

In 1704, Edmund Halley was appointed the professor of geometry at Oxford, but he still persistently studied astronomy. In 1705, his book, A Synopsis of the Astronomy of Comets, was published and it described an observation of parabolic orbits of 24 comets that were observed between the years 1337 and 1698.

Halley’s careful observations with many separate years reveled that comets travelled in similar orbits. Particularly, he saw that the comets of the years 1531, 1607, and 1682 were similar and thus same. In fact, he further predicted that the comet would return in the year 1758 and when it did, it was named Halley’s Comet to honor his discovery.

In a nutshell, Halley’s transition from theoretical to applied astronomy has made him iconic and a symbol of inspiration to young astronomers. In his time, he also devised methods of accurately measuring the distance of the earth from sun. In 1720, he took over as the Astronomer Royal of Greenwich until his death in 1742.

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Re: ~ Famous Astronomers ~
« Reply #7 on: September 15, 2014, 07:47:51 PM »
Edwin Hubble



Born: Nov 20, 1889 in Marshfield, Missouri, U.S.

Died: Sep 28, 1953 (at age 63) in San Marino, California

Nationality: American

Famous For: Hubble sequence

Awards: Legion of Merit 1946, Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society 1940, Franklin Medal 1939, Bruce Medal 1938

Edwin Hubble was an American astronomer who played a vital role in the establishment of extragalactic astronomy. He is regarded as one of the valuable observational cosmologists of the 20th century. He is specifically known for illustrating that recessional velocity in a galaxy increases with the distance from the earth, which implies that the universe is constantly expanding.

Edwin Hubble’s Early Life

Edwin Hubble was born in 1889. During his early years, he was noted more for his prowess in athletics than in his intellectual capabilities. He was a gifted athlete who played football, basketball, baseball and track. In fact, he ran track in both college and high school. He went to school at the University of Chicago and concentrated mainly on math, philosophy, and astronomy. These earned him a bachelor’s degree in science in 1910.

He was married to one wife, Grace Hubble

Hubble’s Career

Hubble’s father wanted him to study law. As a result, Edwin studied law at the University of Chicago and then later at Oxford. Since he did not have a passion for law, he began teaching physics, math, and Spanish at the New Albany High School after his father died. At the age of 25, he gave up his teaching career and became a professional astronomer.

Hubble’s Contribution to Astronomy

In 1923, Hubble trained a Hooker telescope on a patch of the sky by the name of Andromeda Nebula. He discovered that it had stars similar to the ones in the galaxy, only dimmer. From the discovery, Hubble deduced that Andromeda Nebula was not a star nearby but rather an entire galaxy, which has subsequently been named the Andromeda Galaxy.

Hubble went on with his discoveries and by the end of those ten years, he found galaxies to compare with each other. He made a system that classified galaxies into spirals, barred spirals, and elliptical. This system is now known as the Hubble tuning fork diagram and it is still used today, but in an evolved form.

Hubble’s major discovery was when he studied spectra of 46 galaxies. He studied the Doppler velocities of the galaxies that were similar to the Milky Way. He discovered that the farther apart the galaxies are, the faster they move apart from each other.

Hubble also wrote two books – The Observational Approach to Cosmology and The Realm of the Nebulae.

The Hubble Telescope

Hubble has a telescope named after him: the Hubble Space Telescope. It was launched in 1990 with a main goal of pinning down the Hubble constant. The telescope helped discover that the universe is not only expanding, but that the expansion is accelerating as well.

Hubble’s Death

After his long career at Mt. Wilson Observatory, Hubble died in 1953 following a heart attack in 1949 and a blood clot in his brain four years later. There was no funeral for him and his wife did not reveal his burial site.

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Re: ~ Famous Astronomers ~
« Reply #8 on: September 15, 2014, 07:51:50 PM »
Fritz Zwicky



Born: Feb 14, 1898 in Varna, Principality of Bulgaria

Died: Feb 8, 1974 (at age 75) in Pasadena, California, USA

Nationality: American, Swiss

Famous For: Dark Matter, Supernovae, Galaxies, Neutron stars

Awards: President’s Medal of Freedom (1949), Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1972)

Fritz Zwicky was a Swiss astronomer who worked most of his life at the California Institute of Technology. He is known for his many important contributions in theoretical and observational astronomy.

Zwicky’s Early Life

Zwicky was born on February 14, 1898, in Bulgaria to Swiss parents. He was the oldest of three children. At an early age of six, he was sent to live with his grandparents in Glarus, Switzerland. While there, he studied commerce. But later, his interest shifted to math and physics. At Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, he received his advanced education in mathematics and experimental physics.

Zwicky’s Work and Career

Zwicky migrated to the United States in 1825. After receiving the International Fellowship from the Rockefeller Foundation, he worked at the California Institute of Technology with Robert Millikan. In this institute, he was responsible for the positioning of several cosmological theories that had a great impact on the general understanding of the universe. In 1924, he was appointed Professor of Astronomy and he also worked as a consultant for the Aerojet Engineering Corporation.

Major Contributions to Astronomy

Zwicky was fascinated with cosmic rays. With the help of his colleague, Walter Baade, he pioneered the use of the very first Schmidt telescope that was used in mountaintop observations in 1935. He personally carried the lens from Germany which had been polished by Bernard Schmidt, an optician.

In 1934, together with Baade, he came up with the term “supernova” and hypothesized that this was the transformation of the normal stars into the neutron stars and the origin of the cosmic rays. Zwicky later started hunting for supernovae and he was able to find a total of 120.

Other Contributions to Astronomy

In addition to coining the word “supernova,” Zwicky and Baade suggested the use of supernovae as standard candles that can be used to estimate distances in the deep space. In addition, Zwicky also hypothesized that the galaxy clusters could actually act as gravitational lenses, which was by the previously discovered Einstein effect. This effect was later confirmed in 1979 by Twin Quasar observation.

After discovering neutron stars, Zwicky considered nuclear goblins. According to him, goblins could move within a given star and then explode violently as they get to a less dense region towards the star’s surface. This served to explain the eruptive phenomena like flare stars. He also produced the artificial meteors and even considered the possibility of rearranging the universe.

Zwicky and Dark Matter

While studying Coma galaxy cluster in 1933, Zwicky was the first person to use the viral theorem to deduce the existence of the unseen matter. This was referred to as the ‘dark matter’. After calculating gravitational mass of galaxies within the cluster, he obtained a value that was 400 times greater that than expected luminosity. He concluded that most of matter must be dark.

Later Years and Death

In 1949, Fritz Zwicky was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom for his work on rocket propulsion during the Second World War. He was also awarded the Gold Medal of Royal Astronomical Society in 1972, which is the most prestigious award an astronomer can receive.

Zwicky died in California on February 8, 1974, at the age of 75. His body is buried in Switzerland.

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Re: ~ Famous Astronomers ~
« Reply #9 on: September 15, 2014, 07:55:21 PM »
Galileo Galilei



Born: Feb 15, 1564 in Pisa, Duchy of Florence, Italy

Died: Jan 8, 1642 (at age 77) in Arcetri, Grand Duchy of Tuscany, Italy

Nationality: Italian

Famous For: Kinematics, Dynamics, Telescopic observational astronomy, Heliocentrism

Galileo Galilei was born on February 15 1564, in Pisa, Italy. When he was 17 years old, his parents sent him to the University at Pisa to pursue medicine.

Galileo’s Pendulum Study

While he was in a service in the cathedral one day, he was distracted by a bronze lamp hanging from the ceiling. He noticed that the lamp was drawn aside so as to light the room better. When it was released, the lamp oscillated back and forward gradually with decreasing amplitude.

Galileo used the pulse of his heart to keep the time and was surprised to discover the lamp’s oscillation period was unaffected by the arc’s size of oscillation. He later proved through an experiment that the period taken by a swinging pendulum did not depend on the bob’s weight. He proved that the period is dependent only on the pendulum’s length.

The pendulum was what formed his interest in astronomy and science. When he later got the chance to attend a lecture in geometry, this further fueled his interest in astronomy. Galileo then changed from medicine and decided to study science, philosophy, and mathematics. These were subjects in which he believed he possessed a strong natural talent.

Galileo’s Career

In 1589, Galileo was appointed the mathematics professor at Pisa. In 1591, his father, Vincenzo Galilei, died and as the eldest son, Galileo had to take up the position of the bread winner. Since he was not well paid as the mathematics professor, he looked for a much better post.

In 1952, Galileo become the mathematics professor at the University of Padua. He was able to secure a job with a salary that was almost three times more than the one he received at Pisa. He held this position until 1610 and described this period as the happiest time of his life. He focused on a number of experiments, such as the speed of fall of various objects, the pendulum effect, and mechanics.

Contributions to Astronomy

In 1609, Galileo heard of the telescope invention in Holland. Having not seen the telescope, he made a superior version which he used to make many astronomical discoveries. He was able to discover that there were valleys and mountains on the moon’s surface. He could track sunspots, observe the planet Venus and its phases, and even see that Jupiter had four large moons. His discoveries made him popular and he was later appointed to the court mathematician of Florence.

Controversy with the Church

In 1614, Galileo was accused of heresy because he supported the infamous Copernican theory which stated that the sun was the central part of the solar system. This went against what the Catholic Church said, which was that the earth was the center of the universe. In 1616, the church went so far as to forbid him from teaching or pursuing such theories.

Galileo’s Punishment

In 1632, Galileo was condemned of heresy after he published his book Dialogue-Concerning-the-Two Chief World Systems. In his book, he used a dialogue between two men to argue facts that were in support and against the Copernican theory.

Galileo was called to present himself before the Inquisition at Rome where he was convicted and sentenced to a life of imprisonment. The sentence was later minimized to permanent house arrest in his home in Arcetri after being forced to publically withdraw his views and beliefs of the discredited Copernican theory.

Later Years and Death

By 1638, he was starting to lose his eyesight, but he still continued writing. He published a book called Discourses Concerning Two New Sciences which included his ideas on motion laws and principles of mechanics. Galileo died in his home in Arcetri on January 8, 1642.

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Re: ~ Famous Astronomers ~
« Reply #10 on: September 15, 2014, 07:58:38 PM »
George Gamow



Born: Mar 4, 1904 (O.S. Feb 20) in Odessa, Russian Empire

Died: Aug 19, 1958 (at age 64) in Boulder, Colorado, U.S.

Nationality: Russian, American

Famous For: Big Bang, Gamow factor, Gamow–Teller transition, Alpher–Bethe–Gamow paper, Alpha decay

Awards: Kalinga Prize (1956)

George Gamow was a Ukrainian-American cosmologist and a theoretical physicist. He was also an early developer and advocate of Lemaitre’s Big Bang Theory. He made the discovery of the alpha decay through quantum tunneling theory and also worked on the radioactive decay of atomic nucleus, stellar nucleosynthesis, star formation and the Big Bang nucleosynthesis.

Gamow’s Early Life

George Gamow was born in 1904 in the Russian Empire. His parents were both teachers, but his mom died when he was nine years old. As such, he grew up with his father. His education was mainly self-taught. He attended university at the Novorossiya University and later went to the University of Leningrad where he concentrated on optics and cosmology.

In Leningrad, George made friends with two other students who were also theoretical physicists – Dmitri Ivanenko and Lev Landau. They often met to analyze and discuss groundbreaking papers based on quantum mechanics.

Gamow’s Career

After getting his Ph.D. from Leningrad, Gamow started working at the University of Gottingen on quantum theory. This university was based in Germany and it was here that he researched the atomic nucleus. His findings gave him the basis for his doctorate.

He proposed the ‘liquid drop’ model of an atom first. This model treats the nucleus in an atom as one drop of an incompressible nuclear fluid. It was later developed by John Wheeler and Niels Bohr. He worked on the stellar physics with Fritz and Robert Atkinson as well.

In 1928, Gamow described the alpha decay theory. This was the first acknowledged explanation of the mannerism of radioactive components using quantum theory.

Gamow in the United States

After relocating to the US in 1934, Gamow started working as a professor of Physics at the University of George Washington. During this time, he worked with Edward Teller and published joint papers with him. Some of these important papers included the Beta Decay

in 1936 and the Internal Structures of Giant Stars in 1942.

Gamow produced another paper in 1928 with his students – Ralph Alpher and Mario Schenberg – on cosmology titled The Origin of Chemical Elements. This paper outlined present levels of helium and hydrogen in the atmosphere. These gases make up 99% of matter. This could be explained by the reactions which occurred in the Big Bang which led to the explanation of the Big Bang Theory.

In 1950, after the discovery of the DNA structure, George shifted his attention to genetics and biochemistry. He attempted to address the problem of how different kinds of bases in the DNA chains controlled the synthesis of the proteins from amino acids. Though it was flawed, it helped in the enumeration of the 20 amino acids present in proteins.

Other Contributions to Astronomy

Gamow had a great interest in astronomy and the solar system. In fact, he helped write a paper that supported von Weizsacker’s theory on how the planets formed during the solar system’s early days. He also published a paper which included his equations for calculating the radius and mass for the early galaxy. Since a primordial galaxy contains billions of stars that each have about the same mass as the sun, this was no easy task.

Later Years

Gamow developed an excessive drinking problem which precipitated his death in 1968 at age 64. He was laid to rest in the Green Mountain Cemetery in Boulder, Colorado.

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Re: ~ Famous Astronomers ~
« Reply #11 on: October 07, 2014, 08:36:27 PM »
Jocelyn Bell Burnell



Born: July 15, 1943 in Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK

Nationality: Northern Irish

Famous For: Discovery of first 4 pulsars

Awards: The Herschel Medal (1989), Fellow of the Royal Society (March 2003), Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (2007)

Some say that Jocelyn Bell Burnell made the greatest discovery concerning astronomy in the 20th Century, which was radio pulsars. However, some feel she was pushed aside and did not receive the recognition she deserved for her discovery.

Early Life and Education

Susan Jocelyn Bell was born in Belfast, Ireland, in 1943 to a father who was an architect and who also designed a high-profile planetarium. Her parents encouraged her to study astronomy and science from an early age. Even so, she struggled in primary school and failed the exam for her 11+, which is the equivalent of a high school diploma in the United States.

At the same time, Bell’s teachers recognized her as a young woman with a special talents and intelligence. She was encouraged to focus her mind on astronomy and physics, a subject for which she displayed brilliance. She eventually earned her doctorate in astrophysics from New Hall, which is now Murray Edwards College, a branch of the prestigious University of Cambridge.

Bell’s Major Discovery

After earning her academic credentials, Bell became the driving force which built the radio telescope that would eventually discover radio pulsars, which are rapidly spinning neutron stars.

But at the time, Bell was still working under her thesis supervisor, British astronomer Antony Hewish. It was he, along with Martin Ryle, who received most of the recognition for the discovery of radio pulsars – a move which outraged many in the world of advanced astronomy.

Although she was kept out of certain meetings regarding this major discovery, Bell insisted that certain data was highly significant, and this specific data led to the discovery of radio pulsars. Her superiors, however, attempted to dismiss the data as signals from “little green men.” Then when it was established that Bell had been correct all along – it was Hewish and Ryle who received the credit and the Nobel Prize for the discovery.

Bell’s Reaction

With great humility, Bell herself said that too much has been made of her treatment at the hands of her mentors and the Nobel committee. She said that her discovery was partially “luck,” and she also points out that is has always been standard form to exclude research students (which she was at the time under Hewish) for major awards or recognition.

Awards and Recognitions

Despite missing out on science’s top prize, Jocelyn Bell Burnell has received some of the highest honors and awards in science and from her country. She was named Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire (the equivalent of being knighted) in 1999. She also received the Herschel Medal, the J. Robert Oppenheimer Memorial Prize, and was named a Fellow of the Royal Society.

Bell’s Personal Life

Susan Jocelyn Bell is also a devout Quaker, a belief system that she says is more akin to science than religion because it encourages followers to reject dogma and find their own way to God based on direct experience.

Today, Jocelyn Bell goes by the name of Jocelyn Bell Burnell, taking the name of a husband she married in 1968 but later divorced. She has one son from the marriage. At age 69, Bell Burnell is still active in her research and is among the most respected scientists in the world.

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Re: ~ Famous Astronomers ~
« Reply #12 on: October 07, 2014, 08:43:26 PM »
Johannes Kepler



Born: Dec 27, 1571 in Free Imperial City of Weil der Stadt, Germany

Died: Nov 15, 1630 (at age 58) in Regensburg, Electorate of Bavaria, HRE, present-day Germany

Nationality: German

Famous For: Kepler’s laws of planetary motion, Kepler conjecture

Johannes Kepler was a German astronomer who formulated three laws of planetary motion, which were indispensable in helping Isaac Newton discover the laws of gravity. He was also the earliest professional astronomer to support Copernicus’ theories regarding heliocentrism. Kepler also suggested more accurate and refined lenses for telescopes. An asteroid and one of the moon’s larger craters is named in honor of him.

Kepler’s Early Life

Kepler was born in Weil, Germany, in 1571. His father was a mercenary who abandoned the family when Johannes was young and his mother was tried as a witch when Kepler was an adult.

Kepler attended the University of Tübingen and in 1597, he married Barbara Müller, a wealthy young widow. They had five children together, but only a few of them survived. Following the death of Muller in 1611 , Kepler married Susanna Reuttinger. Together, they had six more children.

Kepler’s Career Beginnings

Kepler accepted an offer to teach mathematics and other subjects at the Lutheran school in Graz, now in Austria. He took this teaching job even though he wanted to join the ministry. However, because he was pressured to convert to Roman Catholicism, he left Graz and the school and moved with his family to Prague.

Relationship with Brahe

Some time before these troubles began, he met the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe. Brahe’s influence on Kepler was enormous. Brahe even supported Kepler and his family financially for a while and made it possible for him to advance in his career through his political connections.

Brahe was the most renowned astronomical observer in Europe at the time and he hired Kepler as his assistant. When Brahe died in 1601, Rudolph II, who was then the Holy Roman Emperor, appointed Kepler to be Brahe’s successor as the imperial mathematician.

Kepler’s Discoveries about Ellipses

Kepler’s most significant discoveries came when he was searching for an orbit that fit all of Brahe’s observations regarding the planet Mars. Before this, astronomers believed that a planet’s orbit was a circle, or combinations of circles. Kepler simply could not find a circular arrangement that agreed with Brahe’s observations.

Kepler eventually came to the realization that Mars’ orbit around the sun could not be a circle and was in fact an ellipse. The ellipse model worked and the theory that planets moved in circles, which had been in existence for some 2,000 years, was put to rest.

Kepler’s Three Laws

Throughout his studies, Kepler was able to formulate three scientific laws regarding the orbit of the planets and their motion around the sun. His first law states that every planet follows an oval shaped path, or orbit, around the sun. This path is called an ellipse and the sun is located at one focal point of the ellipse.

Kepler’s Second Law of Planetary Motion states that there is an imaginary line from the center of the sun to the center of a planet. As planets move along this imaginary line, they move faster when they are closer to the sun and slower as they are a longer distance from the sun.

Thirdly, Kepler defined the time that it takes for a planet to make one complete trip around the sun as one period. His third law states that the squares of the periods of two planets are proportional to the cubes of their main distances from the sun.

Kepler’s Later Years and Death

In his later years, Kepler became an adviser to General Albrecht von Wallenstein, for whom he drew up horoscopes. Wallenstein worked under Ferdinand II, who had succeeded Rudolph as Holy Roman Emperor. Kepler moved to Regensburg in Germany and died there on November 15, 1630.

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Re: ~ Famous Astronomers ~
« Reply #13 on: October 29, 2014, 06:55:43 PM »
Johann Gottfried Galle



Born: Jun 9, 1812 in Radis, Germany

Died: Jul 9, 1910 (at age 98) in Potsdam, Germany

Nationality: German

Famous For: Discovery of Neptune

Johann Gottfried Galle was a German astronomer. He was the first person to view planet Neptune and actually know that he was looking at the planet.

Early Life

Galle was born on June 9, 1812, in Papsthaus, just a short distance west of Radis and next to the town of Grafenhainichen. He attended Gymnasium in Wittenburg where he studied at Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Berlin between 1830 and 1833. He later became a teacher at the Gymnasium in Guben where he taught physics and mathematics, but he later transferred to the Gymnasium in Berlin.

The Berlin Observatory

Galle started working as an assistant to Johann Franz Encke at the Berlin Observatory in 1835. He worked there for the next 16 years. While there, he made use of a Fraunhofer-refractor with a 9 Zoll (22.5 cm) aperture which helped him discover an inner dark ring of Planet Saturn. Between December 1839 and March 1840, Galle had also discovered three new comets.

In 1845, Galle was awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy. His doctoral thesis could be described as a reduction and a critical discussion of Ole Romer’s observation of the meridian transits of planets and other stars between October 20 and October 23 of 1706.

Discovering Neptune

About the same time as Galle received his Ph.D., he sent a copy of his thesis to Urbain Le Verrier. He did not receive a reply, however, until a year later on September 23, 1946. Le Verrier had been investigating perturbations of the orbit of Uranus. From his studies, he was able to derive the actual position of the then undiscovered planet and he therefore requested Galle to search for it in the corresponding part of the sky.

With the help of his assistant, Heinrich Louis, Galle discovered a star of 8th magnitude which was only one degree away from the calculated position. The following couple of days, they were able to measure the proper motion of the celestial object (4 seconds of arc) and it was then determined as a planet. The planet was subsequently named Neptune.

The Breslau Observatory

In 1851, Galle moved to Breslau (now Wroclaw), where he became the director of a local observatory and later became a professor of Astronomy at Schlesischen Friendrich-Wilhelms-Universitat Breslau. He worked in Breslau for more than 45 years. He was elected as the rector, which is the highest position one can hold in a university, for the academic year 1875/76.

Other Contributions to Astronomy

At Breslau, Galle still continued to study planetary orbits and even developed a method for calculating the total height of the aurorae and the path of Meteors. He consolidated the data for the 414 comets that were discovered by 1894 into a single piece of work. He was also interested with climatology and the Earth’s magnetic field. Galle published over 200 works in his life time.

Galle also made an important contribution in determining the mean distance between the sun and the earth (also known as the astronomical unit, AU). This turned out to be a difficult task, but he was finally able to calculate the measurement to within 10,000 miles.

Galle’s Later Years

Galle returned to Potsdam in Germany’s Brandenburg in 1897. He died on July 10, 1910, at the age of 98, but not before receiving accolades from the astronomical world on the 50th anniversary in 1896 of his discovery of Neptune. In 1977, Grafenhainichen erected a memorial in Galle’s honor.

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Re: ~ Famous Astronomers ~
« Reply #14 on: October 29, 2014, 06:58:35 PM »
Joseph-Louis Lagrange



Born: Jan 25, 1736 in Turin, Piedmont-Sardinia

Died: Apr 10, 1813 (at age deadAGE) in Paris, France

Nationality: Italian, French

Famous For: Analytical mechanics, Celestial mechanics, Mathematical analysis, Number theory

Awards: Grand Croix (1813), French Academy of Sciences (1764)

Joseph-Louis Lagrange was born on January 25, 1736, in the city of Turin, located in Italy. He was a well-known mathematician as well as an astronomer. Although he was born in Italy, he spent a good part of his life in the country of Prussia and in France. Lagrange made many contributions to many different fields, including number theory and celestial mechanics as well as analysis and classical mechanics.

LaGrange’s Accomplishments and Contributions

In 1766, Lagrange became the director of mathematics at the Prussian Academy of Sciences, located in Berlin. He stayed there for more than 20 years. During his time there, LaGrange created a large body of works and he won many prizes from the French Academy of Sciences. He published a treatise based on analytical mechanics in 1788 entitled Mecanique Analytique, which was considered to be the most comprehensive work of the era on that topic.

Also, a week before LaGrange died in 1813, he was awarded the Grand Croix, which was a prestigious award. He also went onto be awarded with other prestigious awards, including the French Academy of Sciences award, which was given to him in 1764 for a memoir that he wrote on the libation of the moon.

Prizes and Distinctions

LaGrange accomplished many things throughout his career, with one of them being elected as a Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh, which was in 1790. In 1806, he was also elected as a Foreign Member of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences.

When the Eiffel Tower first opened, LaGrange was one of the few French scientists who were remembered on plaques during first stage of the tower. He was honored by having the Rue Lagrange named after him, which is located in Paris’ 5th Arrondissement. In addition to that, a lunar crater is named after him as well as the street where the house in which he was born is located.

LaGrange’s Personality

In addition to his awards and contributions to the field of astronomy, LaGrange was also known for his personality and his overall demeanor. People would talk about his nervousness and his timidity. He also let people take credit for some of the things he did simply to avoid any potential controversy.