William Henry Pickering
William Henry Pickering (born February 15, 1858 in Boston , † January 17, 1938 in Mandeville , Jamaica ) was an American astronomer .
He mainly devoted himself to the planets and moons of the solar system - very different from his brother Edward Charles Pickering (1846–1919) at Harvard University , who became known for his study of variable stars .
In 1891 he and his brother built an observatory in Arequipa , Peru . In 1894 he built another for Percival Lowell in Flagstaff , Arizona - the soon-to-be-famous Lowell Observatory . In Peru in 1898 he photographed Phoebe , the ninth moon of Saturn , and recognized its retrograde orbital motion around the planet. In 1905 he announced the discovery of a tenth moon of Saturn, which he named " Themis ". However, this later turned out to be nonexistent. William Pickering analyzed perturbations of Neptune, because he suspected a Transneptune orbiting outside of it, and predicted its existence in 1919 with information on its position. In so doing, he contributed to the discovery of "Planet X" ( Pluto ).
Further research topics of picking were formations and crater analyzes of the Earth's moon , photometry , meteor swarms and the chemical composition of meteorites . He also introduced a ten-part scale for assessing air turbulence (“ Pickering scale ”).
Well-known books by him are "The Moon" (1903) and "Mars" (1921). In 1909 he received the Jules Janssen Prize . The lunar crater Pickering is named after him and his brother Edward Charles Pickering, as is the asteroid (784) Pickeringia . The Mars crater Pickering after the brothers and the New Zealand rocket engineer Bill Pickering named. William Henry Pickering, on the other hand, is the sole namesake for the Pickering Nunatakker on Alexander I Island in Antarctica.
In 1883 Pickering was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences .
Web links
- Publications by WH Pickering in the Astrophysics Data System
- ManfredHoll.de: William Henry Pickering (1858–1938)
- L. Campbell: William Henry Pickering, 1858-1938. Publications of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, Vol. 50, No. 294, pp. 122–125 (obituary, English)
- EP Martz, Jr .: Professor William H. Pickering - An Appreciation. Popular Astronomy, Vol. 46 (1938), pp. 299-310 (obituary, English)
- DL Edwards: William Henry Pickering. Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society, Vol. 99 (1939), pp. 328–329 (obituary, English)
Individual evidence
- ^ Members of the American Academy. Listed by election year, 1850–1899 ( PDF ). Retrieved September 24, 2015
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Pickering, William Henry |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | American astronomer |
| DATE OF BIRTH | February 15, 1858 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Boston |
| DATE OF DEATH | January 17, 1938 |
| Place of death | Mandeville, Jamaica |