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Occupation: Astronomer

LISTS

NameOccupationBirthDeathKnown for
Cleveland Abbe
Physicist
3-Dec-1838 28-Oct-1916 America's first weatherman
Charles Greeley Abbot
Astronomer
31-May-1872 17-Dec-1973 Solar energy
John Couch Adams
Astronomer
5-Jun-1819 21-Jan-1892 Discovered planet Neptune
Walter S. Adams
Astronomer
20-Dec-1876 11-May-1956 Long-time director of Mt. Wilson Observatory
George Biddell Airy
Astronomer
27-Jul-1801 2-Jan-1892 British Astronomer Royal
Giovanni Battista Amici
Astronomer
25-Mar-1786 10-Apr-1863 Italian astronomer, microscopist
Anaxagoras
Philosopher
c. 500 BC c. 428 BC Matter composed of infinite elements
Anders Jonas Ångström
Physicist
13-Aug-1814 21-Jun-1874 Founder of spectroscopy
François Arago
Physicist
26-Feb-1786 2-Oct-1853 Investigated earth magnetics
Friedrich Wilhelm August Argelander
Astronomer
22-Mar-1799 17-Feb-1875 Durchmusterung
Aristarchus of Samos
Astronomer
c. 310 BC c. 230 BC First heliocentrist
Walter Baade
Astronomer
24-Mar-1893 25-Jun-1960 German-American observational astronomer
Harold D. Babcock
Astronomer
24-Jan-1882 8-Apr-1968 Solar radiation
Horace W. Babcock
Astronomer
13-Sep-1912 29-Aug-2003 Adaptive optics and the Babcock Model
Jean-Sylvain Bailly
Astronomer
15-Sep-1736 12-Nov-1793 Histoire de l'Astronomie
Francis Baily
Astronomer
28-Apr-1774 30-Aug-1844 First to observe Baily's Beads
John Bainbridge
Astronomer
1582 3-Nov-1643 Description of the late Comet
Benjamin Banneker
Astronomer
9-Nov-1731 25-Oct-1806 First African-American astronomer
Edward Barnard
Astronomer
16-Dec-1857 16-Feb-1923 Self-taught scientist
David Bates
Astronomer
18-Nov-1916 5-Jan-1994 Atmospheric and interstellar physics
Friedrich Wilhelm Bessel
Astronomer
22-Jul-1784 17-Mar-1846 Pioneer in precision astronomy
Ludwig Biermann
Astronomer
13-Mar-1907 12-Jan-1986 Solar winds
Adriaan Blaauw
Astronomer
12-Apr-1914 1-Dec-2010 Evolving galaxies
Bart Jan Bok
Astronomer
28-Apr-1906 5-Aug-1983 Bok globules
Alec Boksenberg
Astronomer
18-Mar-1936   Image Photon Counting System
John G. Bolton
Astronomer
5-Jun-1922 6-Jul-1993 First Director of Parkes Observatory
George Phillips Bond
Astronomer
20-May-1825 17-Feb-1865 Father of astrophotography
Ruggero Giuseppe Boscovich
Astronomer
18-May-1711 13-Feb-1787 Theoria philosophiae naturalis
Nathaniel Bowditch
Astronomer
26-Mar-1773 17-Mar-1838 American Practical Navigator
Ira S. Bowen
Astronomer
21-Dec-1898 6-Feb-1973 Debunked nebulium
James Bradley
Astronomer
1693 13-Jul-1762 Aberration of Light
Tycho Brahe
Astronomer
14-Dec-1546 24-Oct-1601 Copper-nosed Danish astronomer
Dirk Brouwer
Astronomer
1-Sep-1902 31-Jan-1966 Celestial mechanics
Ernest W. Brown
Astronomer
29-Nov-1866 22-Jul-1938 Tables of the Motion of the Moon
Michael E. Brown
Astronomer
c. 1965   Explorer of trans-Neptunian space
R. Hanbury Brown
Astronomer
31-Aug-1916 16-Jan-2002 Optical intensity interferometer
Giordano Bruno
Scientist
1548 17-Feb-1600 Heretic cosmologist
E. Margaret Burbidge
Astronomer
12-Aug-1919   Synthesis of the elements in stars
Geoffrey Burbidge
Astronomer
24-Sep-1925 26-Jan-2010 Quasi-steady state cosmology
Jocelyn Bell Burnell
Astronomer
15-Jul-1943   Co-Discoverer of pulsars
William W. Campbell
Astronomer
11-Apr-1862 14-Jun-1938 Stellar Motions
Annie Jump Cannon
Astronomer
11-Dec-1863 13-Apr-1941 Census-taker of the sky
Giovanni Domenico Cassini
Astronomer
8-Jun-1625 14-Sep-1712 Italo-French astronomer
Jacques Dominique Cassini
Astronomer
30-Jun-1748 18-Oct-1845 Director, Observatoire de Paris
Anders Celsius
Astronomer
27-Nov-1701 25-Apr-1744 Astronomer, invented centigrade scale
Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Astronomer
19-Oct-1910 21-Aug-1995 Evolutionary stages of stars
Sydney Chapman
Mathematician
29-Jan-1888 16-Jun-1970 Geomagnetism
Carl Charlier
Astronomer
1-Apr-1862 5-Nov-1934 Motion and the Distribution of the Stars
Charles Chree
Astronomer
5-May-1860 12-Aug-1928 Geomagnetic phenomena
Alvan Clark
Astronomer
8-Mar-1804 19-Aug-1887 Telescope maker
William W. Coblentz
Astronomer
20-Nov-1873 15-Sep-1962 Infrared spectroscopy
Nicolaus Copernicus
Astronomer
19-Feb-1473 24-May-1543 Heliocentrist, De revolutionibus
Thomas George Cowling
Mathematician
17-Jun-1906 16-Jun-1990 Cowling model
George Darwin
Astronomer
9-Jul-1845 7-Dec-1912 Evolution of the Sun-Earth-Moon system
Raymond Davis, Jr.
Scientist
14-Oct-1914 31-May-2006 Detected solar neutrinos
Willem de Sitter
Astronomer
6-May-1872 19-Nov-1934 Expanding space
Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Delambre
Astronomer
19-Sep-1749 19-Aug-1822 Histoire de l'Astronomie
Joseph-Nicolas Delisle
Astronomer
4-Apr-1688 11-Sep-1768 Founded St. Petersburg observatory
Henri Alexandre Deslandres
Astronomer
24-Jul-1853 15-Jan-1948 Spectroheliograph
Jeremiah Dixon
Astronomer
7-Aug-1733 22-Jan-1777 Mason-Dixon Line
Henry Draper
Astronomer
7-Mar-1837 20-Nov-1882 Early astrophotographer
Frank W. Dyson
Astronomer
8-Jan-1868 25-May-1939 Six pips on the BBC
Wallace J. Eckert
Astronomer
19-Jun-1902 24-Aug-1971 First scientist hired by IBM
Arthur Eddington
Astronomer
28-Dec-1882 22-Nov-1944 Eddington luminosity
Robert Emden
Mathematician
4-Mar-1862 8-Oct-1940 Stellar structure
Johann Franz Encke
Astronomer
23-Sep-1791 26-Aug-1865 Investigated comets and asteroids
Eratosthenes
Mathematician
276 BC 194 BC First to measure the Earth
Eudoxus of Cnidus
Mathematician
c. 390 BC c. 340 BC Influential Greek mathematician
Pierre Fatou
Mathematician
28-Feb-1878 10-Aug-1929 Complex analytic dynamics
John Flamsteed
Astronomer
19-Aug-1646 31-Dec-1719 Founder of Greenwich Observatory
Alfred Fowler
Astronomer
22-Mar-1868 24-Jun-1940 Celestial spectroscopy
William A. Fowler
Astronomer
9-Aug-1911 14-Mar-1995 Element generation within stars
Galileo Galilei
Astronomer
15-Feb-1564 8-Jan-1642 Copernican observational astronomer
Pierre Gassendi
Physicist
22-Jan-1592 24-Oct-1655 Exercitationes
Riccardo Giacconi
Astronomer
6-Oct-1931   Discovered cosmic X-ray sources
James M. Gilliss
Astronomer
6-Sep-1811 9-Feb-1865 Founder, US Naval Observatory
Bill Gordon
Astronomer
8-Jan-1918 16-Feb-2010 Designed Arecibo radio telescope
Benjamin Apthorp Gould
Astronomer
27-Sep-1824 26-Nov-1896 American astronomer and star-catalogist
Jesse L. Greenstein
Astronomer
15-Oct-1909 21-Oct-2002 Co-Discoverer of quasars
Stephen Groombridge
Astronomer
7-Jan-1755 30-Mar-1832 A Catalogue of Circumpolar Stars
George Ellery Hale
Astronomer
29-Jun-1868 21-Feb-1938 Palomar Observatory founder, astronomer
Asaph Hall
Astronomer
15-Oct-1829 22-Nov-1907 Discovered the moons of Mars
Edmund Halley
Astronomer
8-Nov-1656 14-Jan-1742 Predicted return of Halley's Comet
James E. Hansen
Scientist
29-Mar-1941   Greenhouse effect and global warming
Peter Andreas Hansen
Astronomer
8-Dec-1795 28-Mar-1874 Fundamenta nova investigationis
Christopher Hansteen
Astronomer
26-Sep-1784 15-Apr-1873 Studied terrestrial magnetism
Guillermo Haro
Astronomer
21-Mar-1913 26-Apr-1988 Herbig-Haro objects
Martin Harwit
Astronomer
9-Mar-1931   Helium-cooled rockets and infrared spectroscopy
Chushiro Hayashi
Astronomer
25-Jul-1920 28-Feb-2010 Big Bang astrophysicist
Otto Heckmann
Astronomer
23-Jun-1901 13-May-1983 Investigated cosmic expansion
Louis Henyey
Astronomer
3-Feb-1910 18-Feb-1970 Henyey method
Heraclides Ponticus
Philosopher
c. 388 BC c. 315 BC Perhaps an early heliocentrist
George Herbig
Astronomer
2-Jan-1920   Herbig-Haro objects
Caroline Herschel
Astronomer
16-Mar-1750 9-Jan-1848 Astronomer, sister of William
John Herschel
Astronomer
7-Mar-1792 11-May-1871 Discovered many moons of Saturn
William Herschel
Astronomer
15-Nov-1738 25-Aug-1822 Mapped heavens, discovered Uranus
Ejnar Hertzsprung
Astronomer
8-Oct-1873 21-Oct-1967 Hertzsprung-Russell diagram
Johannes Hevelius
Astronomer
28-Jan-1611 28-Jan-1687 Selenographia
Antony Hewish
Astronomer
11-May-1924   Co-Discoverer of pulsars
George W. Hill
Astronomer
3-Mar-1838 16-Apr-1914 A New Theorie of Jupiter and Saturn
Hipparchus
Astronomer
c. 190 BC c. 120 BC Cataloguer of stars, trigonometrist
Jack Horkheimer
Astronomer
11-Jun-1938 20-Aug-2010 Naked-eye astronomer
Jeremiah Horrocks
Astronomer
1619 3-Jan-1641 Observed transit of Venus
Fred Hoyle
Astronomer
24-Jun-1915 20-Aug-2001 Opposed the Big Bang but named it
Edwin Hubble
Astronomer
20-Nov-1889 28-Sep-1953 Hubble Space Telescope, Hubble's Law
William Huggins
Astronomer
7-Feb-1824 12-May-1910 Spectrographic astronomy pioneer
Christiaan Huygens
Physicist
14-Apr-1629 8-Jul-1695 Wave theory of light
George Isaak
Astronomer
7-Mar-1933 5-Jun-2005 Resonant scattering spectroscopy
Karl Jansky
Astronomer
22-Oct-1905 14-Feb-1950 Radio waves from outer space
Pierre Janssen
Astronomer
22-Feb-1824 23-Dec-1907 Solar observer
Robert Jastrow
Astronomer
7-Sep-1925 8-Feb-2008 Red Giants and White Dwarfs
James H. Jeans
Astronomer
11-Sep-1877 16-Sep-1946 Continuous creation theory
Jacobus C. Kapteyn
Astronomer
19-Jan-1851 18-Jun-1922 Star streaming
James E. Keeler
Astronomer
10-Sep-1857 12-Aug-1900 Composition of Saturn's rings
Johannes Kepler
Astronomer
27-Dec-1571 15-Nov-1630 Laws of Planetary Motion
Masatoshi Koshiba
Physicist
19-Sep-1926   Detected cosmic neutrinos
Robert P. Kraft
Astronomer
16-Jun-1927   Lick Observatory
Nicolas Louis de Lacaille
Astronomer
15-May-1713 21-Mar-1762 Coelum Australe Stelliferum
Johann Heinrich Lambert
Mathematician
26-Aug-1728 25-Sep-1777 Pyrometrie
Jonathan Homer Lane
Astronomer
9-Aug-1819 3-May-1880 Gravitational equilibrium of the Sun
Andrew E. Lange
Astronomer
23-Jul-1957 22-Jan-2010 Cosmologist, astrophysicist at Caltech
Samuel P. Langley
Astronomer
22-Aug-1834 2-Feb-1906 Heavier-than-air flying machine
Henrietta Swan Leavitt
Astronomer
4-Jul-1868 12-Dec-1921 Cepheid variable
Robert B. Leighton
Astronomer
10-Sep-1919 9-Mar-1997 Leighton dishes
Armin O. Leuschner
Astronomer
16-Jan-1868 22-Apr-1953 Astronomer at Berkeley
Bertil Lindblad
Astronomer
26-Nov-1895 25-Jun-1965 Spiral structure of the galaxy
Bernard Lovell
Astronomer
31-Aug-1913 6-Aug-2012 Radio astronomer at Jodrell Bank
Frank J. Low
Astronomer
23-Nov-1933 11-Jun-2009 Infrared astronomy
Percival Lowell
Astronomer
13-Mar-1855 12-Nov-1916 Predicted existence of planet Pluto
Willem J. Luyten
Astronomer
7-Mar-1899 21-Nov-1994 Stellar mortician
Donald Lynden-Bell
Astronomer
5-Apr-1935   Astrophysicist at Cambridge
Bernard Lyot
Astronomer
27-Feb-1897 2-Apr-1952 Sandstorms on Mars
Geoffrey W. Marcy
Astronomer
29-Sep-1954   Discoverer of exoplanets
Charles Mason
Astronomer
Apr-1728 25-Oct-1786 Mason-Dixon Line
Harrie Massey
Astronomer
16-May-1908 27-Nov-1983 British National Committee for Space Research
Pierre-Louis Moreau de Maupertuis
Astronomer
28-Sep-1698 27-Jul-1759 Sur la figure de la terre
Antonia Maury
Astronomer
21-Mar-1866 8-Jan-1952 Stellar classification
Johann Tobias Mayer
Astronomer
17-Feb-1723 20-Feb-1762 Kosmographische Nachrichten
Paul W. Merrill
Astronomer
15-Aug-1887 19-Jul-1961 S-process of nucleosynthesis
Charles Messier
Astronomer
26-Jun-1730 12-Apr-1817 Cataloguer of M objects
John Michell
Geologist
1724 21-Apr-1793 Phaenomena of Earthquakes
Rudolph Minkowski
Astronomer
28-May-1895 4-Jan-1976 Galaxies in collision
Marcel Minnaert
Astronomer
12-Feb-1893 26-Oct-1970 Solar spectrophotometry
Maria Mitchell
Astronomer
1-Aug-1818 28-Jun-1889 First American female astronomer
August Möbius
Astronomer
17-Nov-1790 26-Sep-1868 Möbius strip
Charlotte E. Moore
Astronomer
24-Sep-1898 3-Mar-1990 Technetium in the Sun
Patrick Moore
TV Personality
4-Mar-1923   BBC's The Sky At Night
William W. Morgan
Astronomer
3-Jan-1906 21-Jun-1994 Spiral arms of the Milky Way Galaxy
Gerry Neugebauer
Astronomer
1932   Infrared astronomy
Simon Newcomb
Astronomer
12-Mar-1835 11-Jul-1909 Nautical Almanac
Seth Barnes Nicholson
Astronomer
12-Nov-1891 2-Jul-1963 Four satellites of Jupiter
Wilhelm Olbers
Astronomer
11-Oct-1758 2-Mar-1840 Studied asteroids, comets
Barney Oliver
Astronomer
27-May-1916 23-Nov-1995 SETI researcher
Jan Hendrik Oort
Astronomer
28-Apr-1900 5-Nov-1992 Theory of the origin of comets
Ernst J. Öpik
Astronomer
23-Oct-1893 10-Sep-1985 Andromeda Nebula
Donald E. Osterbrock
Astronomer
13-Jul-1924 11-Jan-2007 Director of Lick Observatory, 1973-81
Bohdan Paczynski
Astronomer
8-Feb-1940 19-Apr-2007 Gravitational microlensing
Eugene Parker
Astronomer
10-Jun-1927   Solar winds
Cecilia Payne-Gaposchkin
Astronomer
10-May-1900 7-Dec-1979 Hydrogen in the Sun
P. James E. Peebles
Astronomer
25-Apr-1935   Galaxy formation
Benjamin Peirce
Mathematician
4-Apr-1809 10-Jun-1880 Idempotent and nilpotent
Nicholas Claude Fabri de Peiresc
Astronomer
1-Dec-1580 24-Jun-1637 Discovered Orion Nebula
Arno Penzias
Astronomer
26-Apr-1933   Detected primordial radiation
Saul Perlmutter
Astronomer
1959   Accelerating expansion of the universe
Edward Charles Pickering
Astronomer
19-Jul-1846 3-Feb-1919 Photometer inventor and surveyor
John S. Plaskett
Astronomer
17-Nov-1865 17-Oct-1941 Plaskett's star
Ptolemy
Astronomer
c. 87 AD c. 150 AD Egyptian geographer and astronomer
E. M. Purcell
Physicist
30-Aug-1912 7-Mar-1997 Nuclear magnetic resonance
Grote Reber
Astronomer
22-Dec-1911 20-Dec-2002 First radio astronomer
Martin Rees
Astronomer
23-Jun-1942   President of the Royal Society
Adam G. Riess
Astronomer
1969   Accelerating expansion of the universe
David Rittenhouse
Astronomer
8-Apr-1732 26-Jun-1796 Early Pennsylvania scientist and statesman
Bruno Rossi
Astronomer
13-Apr-1905 21-Nov-1993 Rossi curve and magnetopause
Vera Rubin
Astronomer
23-Jul-1928   Structure of galaxies
Henry Norris Russell
Astronomer
25-Oct-1877 18-Feb-1957 Giant stars and dwarfs
Martin Ryle
Astronomer
27-Sep-1918 14-Oct-1984 Radio astronomer
Carl Sagan
Astronomer
9-Nov-1934 20-Dec-1996 Popular astronomer, host of Cosmos
Edwin E. Salpeter
Astronomer
3-Dec-1924 26-Nov-2008 Quantitative electron microscopic autoradiography
Allan R. Sandage
Astronomer
18-Jun-1926 13-Nov-2010 Quasars and Hubble-Sandage variable stars
Wallace Sargent
Astronomer
15-Feb-1935   Astrophysicist at CalTech
Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli
Astronomer
14-Mar-1835 4-Jul-1910 Discovered canals on Mars
Frank Schlesinger
Astronomer
11-May-1871 10-Jul-1943 Stellar parallaxes
Brian P. Schmidt
Astronomer
24-Feb-1967   Accelerating universe
Maarten Schmidt
Astronomer
28-Dec-1929   Co-Discoverer of quasars
Karl Schwarzschild
Astronomer
9-Oct-1873 11-May-1916 Black holes, Schwarzschild radius
Martin Schwarzschild
Astronomer
31-May-1912 10-Apr-1997 Structure and Evolution of the Stars
Frederick Hanley Seares
Astronomer
17-May-1873 20-Jul-1964 Astronomer at Mt. Wilson Observatory
Michael Seaton
Astronomer
16-Jun-1923 29-May-2007 Opacity Project
Harlow Shapley
Astronomer
2-Nov-1885 20-Oct-1972 Organizer of Heaven
Iosif S. Shklovskii
Astronomer
1-Jul-1916 3-Mar-1985 Synchrotron radiation of the Crab Nebula
V. M. Slipher
Astronomer
11-Nov-1875 8-Nov-1969 Interstellar dust
Gerald A. Soffen
Astronomer
7-Feb-1926 22-Nov-2000 Viking I mission to mars
Harold Spencer Jones
Astronomer
29-Mar-1890 3-Nov-1960 10th Royal Astronomer of England
Lyman Spitzer, Jr.
Astronomer
26-Jun-1914 31-Mar-1997 Father of space telescopes
Joel Stebbins
Astronomer
30-Jul-1878 16-Mar-1966 Photoelectric photometry
Bengt Strömgren
Astronomer
21-Jan-1908 4-Jul-1987 Hydrogen stars
Friedrich Georg Wilhelm Struve
Astronomer
15-Apr-1793 23-Nov-1864 Studied double stars
Otto Struve
Astronomer
12-Aug-1897 6-Apr-1963 Hydrogen in the interstellar medium
Otto Wilhelm Struve
Astronomer
7-May-1819 14-Apr-1905 Studied double stars
Rashid Sunyaev
Astronomer
1-Mar-1943   Sunyaev-Zeldovich effect
Joseph H. Taylor, Jr.
Astronomer
24-Mar-1941   Co-Discovered first binary pulsar
Clyde W. Tombaugh
Astronomer
4-Feb-1906 17-Jan-1997 Discovered Pluto
Herbert Hall Turner
Astronomer
13-Aug-1861 20-Aug-1930 Stellar positions
Neil deGrasse Tyson
Astronomer
5-Oct-1958   Astrophysicist
James Van Allen
Astronomer
7-Sep-1914 9-Aug-2006 Discovered the Van Allen Belt
James Craig Watson
Astronomer
28-Jan-1838 23-Nov-1880 Claimed to discover the planet Vulcan
Fred Whipple
Astronomer
5-Nov-1906 30-Aug-2004 Comet Guy
Robert Woodrow Wilson
Astronomer
10-Jan-1936   Detected primordial radiation
Fritz Zwicky
Astronomer
14-Feb-1898 8-Feb-1974 Astrophysicist at CalTech



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