MK Vainu Bappu

MK Vainu Bappu ( Manali Kallat Vainu Bappu ; born August 10, 1927 in Madras , † August 19, 1982 in Munich ) was an Indian astronomer .

Life

Vainu Bappu was the only child of Manali Kukuzhi and Sunanna Bappu. His father was an astronomer at the Nizamiah Observatory in Hyderabad, India , who aroused an early interest in his science in his son.

After Vainu Bappu received his Masters in Physics from the University of Madras , he moved to Harvard University , where he obtained his Ph.D. in 1952. During a short stay as a Carnegie Fellow at the Hale Observatories , he and Olin C. Wilson discovered the Wilson-Bappu effect . He then went back to India after a year as a post-doc.

Bappu became director of the Kodaikanal Solar Observatory in 1960. In the early 1970s, a new observatory was set up in Kavalur under his supervision .

He was President of the International Astronomical Union and died during the 18th General Assembly of the IAU of complications after heart surgery in Munich.

In 1985 the asteroid (2596) Vainu Bappu was named after him.

Publications

• Wilson, OC, and MK Vainu Bappu: H and K Emission in Late-Type Stars: Dependence of Line Width on Luminosity and Related Topics. In: Astrophysical Journal , Vol. 125, 1957, pp. 661-683. bibcode : 1957ApJ ... 125..661W

Web links

• Literature by and about MK Vainu Bappu in the catalog of the German National Library
• MKV Bappu's publications in the Astrophysics Data System
• Obituaries for MKV Bappu in the Astrophysics Data System
• Obituary Vainu BAPPU (Engl.)

Individual evidence

1. ^ Tribute to the Memory of Professor MKV Bappu. In: Richard M. West (Ed.): Proceedings of the Eighteenth General Assembly: Patras 1982 , Springer Science & Business Media, 2012, pp. 1 ff.
2. ↑ Minor Planet Circ. 10043