Praskovia Georgievna Parchomenko

Praskovja Georgijewna Parchomenko ( Russian Прасковья Георгиевна Пархоменко ; * 1887 in Sinkiw ; † 1970 in Alushta ) was a Ukrainian - Soviet astronomer .

Life

Parchomenko, daughter of the military officer Georgi Osipovich Parchomenko, dreamed of studying the stars. However, women were denied access to university studies. It was not until 1907 that higher courses for women were opened in Kharkov . In 1914 Parchomenko could begin studying at the Physics and Mathematics Faculty of the Higher Courses for Women. She also succeeded in participating in the expedition of the Charkow Astronomical Observatory (ChAO) under the direction of Ludwig von Struves to Genitschesk to observe the total solar eclipse of August 21, 1914 , with the focus on the photographic recordings of the solar corona . On the expedition Parchomenko became acquainted with Boris Petrovich Gerassimowitsch , Vasily Grigoryevich Fessenkow and Otto von Struve . After her return she worked at the ChAO and made evaluations for Ludwig von Struve, while she studied in the higher courses for women and graduated there in 1918.

After the October Revolution , the revolutionary turmoil and made Bürgergkrieg work in ChAO impossible. There was no fuel for the heating, so the instruments were stored in the cellar, which was not so cold. There were frequent curfews and almost all employees were sick.

In 1923 Parchomenko became an aspirant at the research chair for astronomy at the Kharkov Institute for National Education (ChINO). The director of the ChAO Nikolai Nikolajewitsch Evdokimow appointed her secretary at the scientific meetings of the chair, for which she prepared the reports. In the spring of 1924, Evdokimov reported in a publication on parts of Parchomenko's research work and then also in his description of the total lunar eclipse on August 14, 1924 . In the same year Parchomenko's first own publication appeared. In January 1925 the chair decided to grant her a full scholarship as the best student . In 1926 she was accepted as a member by the Société astronomique de France with the recommendations of Mykola Barabaschows and LL Andrenkos.

At the chair meetings, Parchomenko reported on the quantum physical Planck's law of radiation , Bohr's atomic model , X-ray absorption spectroscopy , largest stars and dwarf stars , the Eddington theory and the Eddington limit , stellar atmospheres , star nebulae , interstellar matter , Legendre polynomials and the work of Otto von Struves interstellar calcium . With Evdokimow and Boris Pavlovich Ostashenko-Kudrjawzew , she observed the total lunar eclipse on December 8, 1927. At the end of the aspirant, in 1927 Parchomenkos reported on her work and defense of her theses against Evdokimov and Barabashow despite resistance from the union side due to Evdokosimov's position as Parchomenkos research assistant decided.

In May 1928 Parchomenko was seconded to the Pulkovo Observatory for a few months for solar observations . In the summer of 1929, she worked in the Crimea in the Simejis Observatory of the Crimean Observatory and discovered the asteroid (1129) Neujmina . In April 1930 she went back to the Crimea at her own expense to work at the Simejis Observatory. In June she discovered the asteroid (1166) Sakuntala . As part of the Ukrainization of reporting and documentation, which began in 1930 , Parchomenko checked the implementation in the ChAO on behalf of the administration and participated with Evdokimow and Barabaschow in the development of Ukrainian astronomical terminology . In April 1931, she went back to the Simejis Observatory, taking advantage of her previously unused vacations.

While the University of Kharkov a CPSU - rector had received, there was no member of the party and not in ChAO Komsomol . On March 25, 1934, Parchomenko was released from the ChAO. Boris Petrovich Gerasimowitsch, who had left Kharkov and had become director of the Pulkovo observatory in 1933, tried to influence the situation by sending a letter to the new ChAO director Barabashov. After a year, Parchomenko returned to the ChAO to be transferred to the Ukrainian Institute for Hygiene and Occupational Diseases . From the fall of 1935, she was preparing to defend her candidate dissertation on the solar atmosphere . After the academic degrees , which had been abolished after the revolution, were reintroduced in the spring of 1936 with the possibility of awarding a dissertation without defense of a dissertation on the basis of previous scientific publications, the People's Commissariat for Education rejected Parchomenko's doctorate requested by the University of Kharkov , while the doctorates less so designated candidates have been approved.

When the Kharkov expedition went to Belorechenskaya in the North Caucasus to observe the total solar eclipse on June 19, 1936 , Parchomenko went there privately. She was now planning to prepare for her doctorate and to go to Moscow for consultations with colleagues on her two-month vacation . However, the ChAO commissioned them to take daily photographs of the sun . Nevertheless, she left Kharkov on August 1, 1936. She submitted her doctoral thesis, applied for a doctorate and sent a copy to Vasily Grigoryevich Fessenkow to defend it at the Sternberg Institute for Astronomy if necessary. In April 1937, Parchomenko traveled to the Pulkovo Observatory to finalize all issues related to the defense of their work. She also translated her work into French on her own initiative and sent it to European colleagues, including Svein Rosseland . She took into account the comments of experts by making changes to the text. In the search for opponents for Parchomenko's dissertation defense, the ChAO administration spoke with Vasily Grigoryevich Fessenkow, Grigori Abramowitsch Schain , Gavriil Adrianowitsch Tichow , Viktor Hambarzumjan , Vladimir Alexejewitsch Krat , Andrei Nikolsky Nikolayevich Severny and Nikolai Parissovich Severny . While the first three scientists refused, the rest of them gave damning verdicts. In April 1938, Parchomenko was given the opportunity by the ChAO in coordination with the new director of the Pulkovo Observatory Sergei Ivanovich Beljawski to seek further advice there.

In 1939 Parchomenko finally gave up her scientific work in Kharkov and went to the Simejis Observatory. In January 1940, she summarized the main content of her dissertation on the solar atmosphere with the results of the work in particular by Marcel Minnaert , Anton Pannekoek and Bertil Lindblad in a new publication. She continued to work there, even after the German-Soviet War, in the restored Simejis Observatory, and led a very secluded life. She was only supported by Solomon Borissowitsch Pinkelner , who ensured that Parchomenko's work was included in anthologies and, according to unconfirmed information, obtained her candidate diploma through his personal relationships. Parchomenko kept a permanent position in the great hall of the observatory library . Barabashov had lost contact with Parchomenko after she left Kharkov, so that he could not provide the information requested in 1966 by the director of the Sternberg Institute for Astronomy Dmitri Yakovlevich Martynov . Parchomenko spent the last years of her life in a nursing home in Alushta.

Parchomenko's name bears the asteroid (1857) Parchomenko, discovered in 1971 by Tamara Mikhailovna Smirnova at the Simejis Observatory .

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c d e f g h i} М. А. БАЛЫШЕВ: ИСТОРИКО-БИОГРАФИЧЕСКОЕ ИССЛЕДОВАНИЕ ЖИЗНИ И ТВОРЧЕСТВА УКРАИНСКОГО АСТРОНОМА ПРАСКОВЬИ ГЕОРГИЕВНЫ ПАРХОМЕНКО . In: Science and Science of Science . tape 99 , no. 1 , 2018, p. 114–137 ( [1] [PDF; accessed January 11, 2020]).
2. ↑ Evdokimow N .: Observations of the passage of Mercury on May 7, 1924 at the Kharkov observatory . In: Astronomical News . tape 222 , no. 5315 , 1924, pp. 175-176 .
3. ^ Evdokimow N .: Observations of the lunar eclipse 1924 August 14 . In: Astronomical News . tape 224 , no. 5361 , 1925, pp. 159-161 .
4. ↑ Parchomenko P .: One of the possible interpretations of the inner movement in the spiral nebulae . In: Astronomical News . tape 222 , no. 5326 , 1924, pp. 369-376 .
5. ↑ Parchomenko P .: Comment on Eddington's theory . In: Русский астрономический журнал . tape 3 , no. 3–4 , 1926, pp. 315-318 .
6. ↑ Parchomenko P .: About the radiation equilibrium of the upper layers of the sun . In: Astronomical News . tape 227 , no. 5443 , 1926, pp. 305-315 .
7. ↑ Parchomenko P .: About solar radiation . In: Astronomical News . tape 233 , no. 5588 , 1928, pp. 329-336 .
8. ↑ Parchomenko P .: Positions and orbit of the planet 1929 PH . In: Astronomical News . tape 239 , no. 5725 , 1930, pp. 229-230 .
9. ↑ ^{a b c} Schmadel Lutz. D .: Dictionary of Minor Planet Names . 5th edition. Springer , 2003, ISBN 3-540-00238-3 , pp. 96, 98, 149 .
10. ↑ Parchomenko P .: Optics of the solar atmosphere . In: Астрономический журнал . tape 12 , no. 2 , 1935, p. 140-144 .
11. ^ Parchomenko P .: The structure of the solar atmosphere . In: The Observatory . tape 59 , no. 751 , 1936, pp. 375-377 .
12. ↑ Parchomenko P .: On the question of researching the solar atmosphere . In: Astronomical News . tape 270 , no. 4 , 1940, p. 193-195 .