Vesto Slipher

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Vesto Slipher

Vesto Melvin Slipher (born November 11, 1875 in Mulberry , Indiana , † November 8, 1969 in Flagstaff , Arizona ) was an American astronomer . He is considered a pioneer of modern planetology , cosmology and astrospectroscopy and as a discoverer of the galaxy escape .

Live and act

Slipher studied mechanics and astronomy at Indiana University ; In 1901 he received a bachelor's degree, a master ’s degree in 1903 and a doctorate in 1909 . He spent most of his professional life at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff, Arizona, of which he was director from 1916 to 1952 after the death of founder Percival Lowell .

He studied the rotation periods of planets and the composition of planetary atmospheres spectroscopically . Around 1910 he observed spectroscopic traces of oxygen and water vapor in the atmosphere of Mars (which are now assumed to be 0.13 and 0.02%). What other scientists doubted, however, stimulated the discussion of Martian canals and lower extraterrestrial life. In 1929 Slipher discovered the sodium layer in the upper atmosphere of the earth and in 1933 he found methane in the atmosphere of the outermost planet Neptune .

He was the first to succeed in the difficult measurement of the radial velocity of a spiral nebula in 1912–1915 and, by 1915, of 14 other galaxies . Later he discovered their rotation . It has not yet been proven that these strange spiral nebulae do not belong to our Milky Way, but are distant "islands of the world". While analyzing their speeds he discovered the general redshift of the galaxies, of which only a few nearby spiral nebulae are an exception. Edwin Hubble later correlated this galaxy escape with the distance, which led to the theory of the expansion of the universe via the Hubble constant .

In 1962 Slipher published a standard work on the photography of Mars and in 1964 of all major planets , for which the Flagstaff Observatory was predestined through decades of work.

Slipher was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1909 , to the National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society in 1921 . He was awarded the Henry Draper Medal in 1932 , the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1933 and the Bruce Medal in 1935 . Two craters on Mars and the Moon were named after him. The asteroid (1766) Slipher is named after him and his brother Earl Charles Slipher .

literature

  • Günter D. Roth: history of astronomy . Kosmos-Verlag, Stuttgart 1987.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Dictionary of Minor Planet Names, Volume 1 in the Google Book Search
personal data
SURNAME Slipher, Vesto
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Slipher, Vesto Melvin (full name)
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American astronomer
DATE OF BIRTH November 11, 1875
PLACE OF BIRTH near Mulberry , Indiana
DATE OF DEATH November 8, 1969
Place of death Flagstaff , Arizona