Rupert Wildt

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Rupert Wildt (born June 25, 1905 in Munich , † January 9, 1976 in Orleans , Massachusetts ) was a German-American astronomer . He was the first to explain energy transport in the sun.

Life

Wildt, son of Hertha and Gero Wildt, began studying physics, chemistry and astronomy in Berlin in 1923 and graduated in 1928 with a doctorate on diffusion atrium in photo layers.

Wildt had specialized in the study of stellar and planetary atmospheres . He wanted to establish the field of astrochemistry. From 1931 to 1934 he identified the presence of gaseous ammonia and methane using absorptions in the infrared spectrum of Jupiter and Saturn . With Uranus and Neptune , he pointed to methane. He developed models of the internal structure of the great gas planets. From 1928 to 1929 he was assistant at the Bonn observatory with Arnold Kohlschütter , then from 1930 to 1933 assistant at the Göttingen observatory with Hans Kienle .

While Kienle actively supported his further career, he was classified as "politically unreliable" by influential NSDAP agencies in Göttingen. Therefore Wildt saw no future in Germany and received from January 1, 1935 with the support of the astrophysicist Henry Norris Russell a Rockefeller scholarship at the Mount Wilson Observatory in Pasadena. This is how he emigrated to the USA. In an obituary, his student DeMarcus reported in 1977 that the Nazis sent Wildt's then Jewish friend to the United States to persuade him to return to Germany. He rejected the request.

On January 1, 1935, he went to the Mount Wilson Observatory in Pasadena (USA) as a Rockefeller Fellow supported by Henry Norris Russell , and from 1936 at the Princeton Observatory .

There he explained his most important discovery in 1939, the energy transport in the photosphere of the sun and cold stars via the formation and decay of weakly stable negative H ions, which are very common there. The existence of this negatively charged ion, which is created by the addition of a free electron to a neutral hydrogen atom, was predicted by Hans Bethe in 1930 and demonstrated in the laboratory by Herbert Massey in 1950 . The necessary free electrons come from the metal atoms.

In 1938 he presented a model of the internal structure of the gas planet. He imagined that these had a solid, earth-like, smaller core surrounded by layers of water ice, condensed gases and, on the outside, highly compressed gases.

In 1940 he described the greenhouse effect caused by carbon dioxide on the planet Venus , which was last measured by the Venus Express probe. From 1948 until his retirement in 1973 he worked as professor of astronomy at Yale University . After the war he worked as a visiting professor in Basel in 1947 and in Hamburg in 1951 .

Between 1957 and 1965 a difficult reparation procedure with the German authorities dragged on for him. He was supported by Prof. Kienle and Prof. Otto Heckmann. In the end, he received the remuneration of a professor emeritus retroactively from October 1, 1960.

In 1962 he married Katherine Eldredge.

In 1966 he received the Eddington Medal exclusively for his interpretation of the energy transport in the sun. Most recently, Wildt dealt with the flash spectrum of the sun. He treated stellar atmospheres deviating from the local thermodynamic equilibrium, a method recognized today.

The asteroid (1953) Rupertwildt and the crater Wildt on the moon are named after him, and his written papers are in the Yale library.

literature

  • Rupert Wildt: Negative Ions of Hydrogen and the Opacity of Stellar Atmospheres. In: The Astrophysical Journal. 89, 1939, ISSN  0004-637X , pp. 295-301, and 90, 1940, pp. 611-620.
  • Anikó Szabó: Expulsion - Return - Reparation. Göttingen university professor in the shadow of National Socialism. With a biographical documentation of the dismissed and persecuted university professors: University of Göttingen - TH Braunschweig - TH Hannover - University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover (= publications of the working group History of Lower Saxony (after 1945). Vol. 145). Wallstein-Verlag, Göttingen 2000, ISBN 3-89244-381-5 (At the same time: Hannover, Univ., Diss., 1998: Expulsion, return, reparation, professors persecuted during the Nazi era: the University of Göttingen as a case study. ).
  • WC DeMarcus: Obituary Rupert Wildt. In: Icarus. 30, 1977, ISSN  0019-1035 , pp. 441-445. doi : 10.1016 / 0019-1035 (77) 90182-8

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Wildt, Rupert
BRIEF DESCRIPTION German-American astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH June 25, 1905
PLACE OF BIRTH Munich
DATE OF DEATH January 9, 1976
Place of death Orleans , Massachusetts