Fred Lawrence Whipple

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Fred Lawrence Whipple
Fred Lawrence Whipple at age 95 in 2001 or 2002
Born(1906-11-05)November 5, 1906
Red Oak, Iowa
DiedAugust 30, 2004(2004-08-30) (aged 97)
Cambridge, Massachusetts
NationalityAmerican
Known forComposition of comets, Whipple shield
Awards President's Award for Distinguished Federal Civilian Service (1963)
Scientific career
FieldsAstronomy
InstitutionsHarvard College Observatory
Minor planets discovered: 1 [1]
1252 Celestia 19 February 1933 list

Fred Lawrence Whipple (November 5, 1906 – August 30, 2004) was an American

dirty snowball" hypothesis of comets, and the invention of the Whipple shield
.

Life

Whipple in 1927

Whipple was born on November 5, 1906, in

University of California at Los Angeles, graduating in 1927. Recollecting his path from mathematics to astronomy, Whipple stated in a 1978 autobiography that his "mathematics major veered [him] through physics and finally focused on astronomy where time, space, mathematics, and physics had a common meeting ground."[2]

After taking a class in astronomy, he enrolled at the University of California, Berkeley where he obtained his PhD in Astronomy in 1931. While in graduate school, he helped map the orbit of the then newly discovered dwarf planet Pluto. He joined Harvard College Observatory in 1931 and studied the trajectories of meteors, confirming that they originated within the Solar System rather than from interstellar space. In 1933, he discovered the periodic comet 36P/Whipple and the asteroid 1252 Celestia. He also discovered or co-discovered five other non-periodic comets, the first of which was C/1932 P1 Peltier-Whipple, independently discovered by the famed amateur astronomer Leslie Peltier, while his last, and brighter, was C/1942 X1 (Whipple–Fedtke–Tevzadze).

During

Certificate of Merit for this in 1948. He also invented a "meteoroid bumper" or "Whipple shield
", which protects spacecraft from impact by small particles by breaking them up.

From 1950 until 1977 he was a professor of Astronomy at

Sputnik I in 1957. He became director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory when Loyal Blaine Aldrich retired in 1955,[7]
and remained in this post until 1973.

Whipple made at least one media appearance, in the science documentary film Target...Earth? (1980). He also appeared in the BBC's coverage of the Giotto encounter with Halley's Comet, in 1986.

Whipple died in 2004, aged 97.

Honors

Awards

Honors

Named after him

References

  1. ^ "Minor Planet Discoverers (by number)". Minor Planet Center. 4 September 2016. Retrieved 25 September 2016.
  2. doi:10.1146/annurev.ea.06.050178.000245
    .
  3. ^ Whipple, Fred L. (1950). "A Comet Model. I. The acceleration of Comet Encke".
    doi:10.1086/145272
    .
  4. ^ Whipple, Fred L. (1951). "A Comet Model. II. Physical Relations for Comets and Meteors".
    doi:10.1086/145416
    .
  5. ^ Whipple, Fred L. (1955). "A Comet Model. III. The Zodiacal Light".
    doi:10.1086/146040
    .
  6. ^ Keller, Horst Uwe; Küppers, M; et al. (2005). "Deep Impact Observations by OSIRIS Onboard the Rosetta Spacecraft".
    S2CID 28032857
    .
  7. Harvard & Smithsonian
    . Retrieved 2016-08-14.
  8. American Academy of Achievement
    .
  9. ^ "Fred Lawrence Whipple". American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Retrieved 2023-01-11.
  10. ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2023-01-11.
  11. ^ "Fred L. Whipple". www.nasonline.org. Retrieved 2023-01-11.
  12. ISBN 978-3-540-00238-3
    .

Further reading

External links
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