Yan Jun

Yan Jun ( Chinese  嚴 俊  /  严 俊 , Pinyin Yán Jùn ; born March 1958 in Nantong , Jiangsu Province ) is a Chinese astrophysicist and politician of the Society of September 3 . He was director of the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences from 2007 to 2018 and has been chief scientist of the Lunar Program of the People's Republic of China since 2009 .

Youth and Studies

Yan Jun was born in March 1958 in Nantong at the mouth of the Yangtze River . After high school, he was initially employed from 1975 (they were still in the cultural revolution ). In 1978, when the University of Nanjing was taking on students again, he enrolled at the local Faculty of Astronomy (天文学 系, since 2011 "Faculty of Astronomy and Space Science"), where he graduated in January 1982 in astrophysics . He then worked half a year as a lecturer at the University of Applied Sciences Nantong (南通职业大学) until it in in September 1982 Purple Mountain Observatory in Nanjing , an institute of the Chinese Academy of Sciences , a post-graduate studies began. In 1986 he graduated as a graduate astrophysicist and then stayed as an assistant at the observatory. Yan Jun received his PhD in 1994. He continued to work at the Observatory on Purple Mountain.

Observatory on the purple mountain

In September 1996, Yan Jun was appointed deputy director of the Purple Mountain Observatory. At the same time he was in charge of a research project on molecular clouds and star formation , which the Department of Antarctic Astronomy and Radio Astronomy ran there. In 1997, Yan Jun was promoted to Science Council with the rank of professor (研究员), and a year later he accepted his first PhD student. Another research focus of Yan Jun were the so-called " Herbig Haro objects ", small, misty structures around young stars. This research was funded by the National Foundation for Natural Sciences until December 31, 2003. Today, the observatory on the purple mountain works in this area with the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg .

On April 16, 1999, the Chinese Academy of Sciences decided to combine its astronomical facilities under one roof. Six days later, on April 23, 1999, a “National Center for Astronomical Observations” (国家 天文 观测 中心) was founded at the Beijing Astronomical Observatory . On May 19, 1999, Ai Guoxiang (艾国祥, * 1938), the director of the Beijing Astronomical Observatory, was appointed head of the center, and Yan Jun was one of his deputies as a representative of the Nanjing Observatory. When the National Astronomical Observatories of the Chinese Academy of Sciences were officially established on April 21, 2001 , Ai Guoxiang initially remained director; Yan Jun, who took over the helm of the Crimson Mountain Observatory in November 2000, remained deputy director of the NAOC.

Independently of the National Astronomical Observatories, the University of Nanjing, the Observatory on the Purple Mountain, the Astronomical Observatory Shanghai and the Chinese University of Science and Technology had the "East China Center for Astronomy and Astrophysics" (华东 天文 与 天体 物理中心), which was mainly staffed with young astronomers and astrophysicists under 45 years of age and was intended to promote cooperation between the Academy of Sciences and the regular universities. The center located in Nanjing maintains offices in the observatory on the purple mountain and in the University of Nanjing and is jointly managed by a representative each from the observatory and the university. From May 1999 to May 2006, Yan Jun was the head of the center for the observatory.

Yan Jun had been executive director (常务 副台长) of the National Astronomical Observatories since August 2005. In July 2007 he took over the position of director from the now 69-year-old Ai Guoxiang. He gave up his post as director of the observatory on the purple mountain in October 2007. In June 2018, at the age of 60, Yan Jun resigned from the post of director of the National Astronomical Observatories. As of 2020, it had not yet been possible to agree who of the five deputy directors should succeed him. First of all, the astrochemist Zhao Gang (赵刚, * 1961), party secretary of the observatories (a kind of works council chairman) and very well networked in Europe, took over the acting management of the facility.

Lunar program

Although his specialty is actually star formation, Yan Jun was appointed chief scientist of the Lunar Program of the People's Republic of China (月球 应用 首席 首席 科学家) as the successor to 73-year-old geochemist Ouyang Ziyuan in 2009, even before the orbiter Chang'e-2 was launched . His job there was to define the scientific goals of the Chang'e-3 landing mission and to select the payloads necessary to achieve these goals. At the same time he took over the post of chief scientist at the "Main Department Lunar Exploration Program of the Chinese Academy of Sciences" (中国科学院 探 月 工程 总体 部) at the National Astronomical Observatories. This was later renamed the "Department of Lunar and Deep Space Exploration of the Chinese Academy of Sciences" (中国科学院 月球 与 深 空 探测 总体 部) and moved to the National Center for Space Science, but Yan Jun initially remained chief scientist Previous deputy Zou Yongliao (邹永廖, * 1964) took over the management.

The Lunar Program of the People's Republic of China is a formulated, legally binding document in which the individual steps of the program are precisely defined and which Prime Minister Wen Jiabao signed into force on January 24, 2004 in the form presented to him. As chief scientist, Ouyang Ziyuan had oriented the lunar program geologically - the title of the final report at the time was “Scientific objectives of a probe for the exploration of mineral resources on the moon through China” - and when Yan Jun took his place, he initially continued the program with this in mind . However, an ultraviolet telescope proposed by the National Astronomical Observatories in July 2004 was installed on the Chang'e-3 lander . In February 2009, right after he took over the post of chief scientist, Yan Jun approved the project, and from September 2009 a prototype was developed. In December 2011, the real telescope was tested, and on December 16, 2013, two days after landing on the moon, the telescope was put into operation. Thanks to a clever construction with a hatch that closes the telescope at sunrise and sunset - moondust increasingly rises at light-dark boundaries - there have been no dust deposits on the mirrors of the Ritchey-Chrétien-Cassegrain telescope . The ²³⁸ Pu in the lander's radionuclide battery should last for about 30 years, and unless unforeseen incidents occur, astronomers could make their observations in the near-ultraviolet range (400-300 nm) during this entire time .

On the next mission, the astronomical aspects were reinforced. Since Chang'e-4 was supposed to land on the back of the moon, it made sense to install a low-frequency spectrometer there for radio astronomical observations in the range below 30 MHz. These are frequencies whose reception is difficult or even impossible due to the reflective properties of the ionosphere on earth, but which are useful for solar research and for observing the red-shifted 21 cm line from the Dark Age 380,000 years after the Big Bang (i.e. before about 13 billion years ago) are of particular interest for research. On the back of the moon one has the additional advantage that such an instrument is shielded from the electromagnetic pollution from terrestrial radio traffic by the mass of the moon . In the end, three instruments for lunar low-frequency interferometry were used in the Chang'e-4 mission: a tripole antenna on the probe's lander, a tripole antenna from Radboud University Nijmegen on the relay satellite Elsternbrücke and a long-wave detector on the accompanying microsatellite Longjiang-2 .

Political commitment

In 1988, Yan Jun joined the “ Gesellschaft des 3 September ”, a political party whose members are mainly recruited from the academic middle and upper classes and whose official motto is “Patriotism, Democracy, Science” (爱国 ， 民主 ， 科学) . From May 22, 1997 to June 1, 2002, he served on the board of the Jiangsu National Association of the party. In the elections for the 10th legislative period of the National People's Congress in December 2002 / January 2003, he was elected to the Chinese parliament in the constituency of Jiangsu for the Society of September 3rd. He served as vice chairman of the Party's Jiangsu National Association from June 1, 2007, but resigned in December 2008. As early as February 2008, the party sent him to the Political Consultative Conference of the Chinese People as one of its 45 representatives for the 11th legislative period. In February 2013 he was sent again to the consultative conference for the 12th legislative period and was elected by this to the standing committee, where the actual work of this parliamentary chamber takes place.

From 1998 to 2003, Yan Jun sat on the Standing Committee of the Jiangsu Provincial Political Consultative Conference, but not as one of the 25 representatives of the Society of September 3, but in the 33-strong faction of the Jiangsu Province Communist Youth Association , the All-China Youth Association (Yan Jun was a board member of the Jiangsu National Association), the All- China Trade Union Confederation and the All-China Women's Association . Thus, through Yan Jun, the September 3rd Society had an additional representative in the Provincial Consultative Conference.

Yan Jun has been a member of the Standing Committee of the Central Committee of the Society of September 3 (九三学社 中央 委员会 常务委员) since December 2002 and is elected in this capacity until December 2022.

Web links

• Fachhochschule Nantong site (English)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ ^{a b c} 历任 领导. In: nao.cas.cn. Retrieved June 25, 2020 (Chinese). 
2. ↑ 学院 简介. In: astronomy.nju.edu.cn. July 25, 2019, accessed June 25, 2020 (Chinese). 
3. ↑ ^{a b c} 严 俊. In: 93.gov.cn. March 19, 2018, accessed June 5, 2020 (Chinese). 
4. ↑ 历任 台 长. In: pmo.cas.cn. September 15, 2019, accessed June 26, 2020 (Chinese). 
5. ↑ 王红 池 et al .: 分子 云 与 恒星 形成 研究. In: pmo.cas.cn. Retrieved June 26, 2020 (Chinese). 
6. ^ Molecular Clouds and Star Formation. In: english.pmo.cas.cn. August 27, 2009, accessed June 26, 2020 . 
7. ↑ 赫比格 - 哈罗 天体 的 观测 研究. In: fund.sciencenet.cn. Retrieved June 26, 2020 (Chinese). 
8. ↑ Zhang Miaomiao: Evidence for active star formation in the Vela C molecular cloud: new Herbig-Haro objects and mid-infrared outflows. In: english.pmo.cas.cn. August 22, 2014, accessed June 26, 2020 . 
9. ↑ 华东 天文 与 天体 物理 中心. In: pmo.ac.cn. Retrieved June 26, 2020 (Chinese). 
10. ↑ 严 俊. In: astro.ustc.edu.cn. January 14, 2016, accessed June 26, 2020 (Chinese). 
11. ↑ ^{a b} 严 俊. In: bao.ac.cn. August 21, 2009, accessed June 26, 2020 (Chinese). 
12. ↑ 现任 领导. In: nao.cas.cn. Retrieved June 27, 2020 (Chinese). 
13. ↑ 中国科学院 探 月 工程 总体 部 招聘 启事. In: bao.ac.cn. February 14, 2011, accessed June 26, 2020 (Chinese). 
14. ↑ 丁 梓 懿: 国家 探 月 工程 科学家 与 香港 青年 分享 科学 发展 成果. In: xinhuanet.com. October 21, 2019, accessed June 26, 2020 (Chinese). 
15. ^ Lunar-based Ultraviolet Telescope (LUT). In: nao.cas.cn. Retrieved June 27, 2020 (English). 
16. ^ Wang Jing et al .: 18-Months Operation of Lunar-based Ultraviolet Telescope: A Highly Stable Photometric Performance. In: arxiv.org. October 6, 2015, accessed June 27, 2020 . 
17. ↑ Helga Rietz: Floating dust on the moon. In: deutschlandfunk.de. August 1, 2012, accessed June 27, 2020 . 
18. ^ Ralph L. McNutt: Radioisotope Power Systems: Pu-238 and ASRG status and the way forward. In: lpi.usra.edu. January 8, 2014, accessed June 27, 2020 . 
19. ^ Andrew Jones: China's telescope on the Moon is still working, and could do for 30 years. In: gbtimes.com. June 5, 2017, accessed May 17, 2019 . 
20. ↑ “龙江 二号” 微 卫星 圆满 完成 环 月 探测 任务, 受控 撞 月. In: clep.org.cn. August 2, 2019, accessed June 27, 2020 (Chinese).  Contains recordings of the spectrum of earthly interference radiation in front of the moon and - no longer measurable - behind the moon.
21. ↑ 第 十届 人大代表 名单. In: cn.chinagate.cn. February 16, 2009, accessed June 27, 2020 (Chinese). 
22. ↑ 九三学社 江苏 省 委员会 历届 领导 名单. In: js93.gov.cn. June 26, 2019, accessed June 27, 2020 (Chinese). 
23. ↑ 中国 人民 政治协商会议 第 十一届 全国 委员会 委员 名单. In: gov.cn. February 29, 2008, accessed June 27, 2020 (Chinese). 
24. ↑ 政协 第十二届 全国 委员会 常务委员 名单. In: cppcc.gov.cn. December 17, 2017, accessed June 27, 2020 (Chinese). 
25. ↑ 中国 人民 政治协商会议 江苏 省 第八届 委员会 第五 次 会议 委员 分组 名单. In: jszx.gov.cn. May 21, 2003, accessed June 27, 2020 (Chinese). 
26. ↑ 历届 中央 委员会. In: 93.gov.cn. Retrieved June 27, 2020 (Chinese). 
27. ↑ 九三学社 第十四 届 中央 常务委员会 委员. In: 93.gov.cn. Retrieved June 27, 2020 (Chinese). 

Note: This article places the family name before the person's first name. This is the usual order in Chinese. Yan is the family name here, Jun is the first name.