Walter Baade
Walter Baade | |
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Hamburg-Bergedorf Observatory, Mt. Wilson, Palomar Observatory | |
Doctoral students | Halton Arp Allan Sandage |
Wilhelm Heinrich Walter Baade (March 24, 1893 – June 25, 1960) was a German astronomer who worked in the United States from 1931 to 1959.
Early life and education
Baade was born the son of a teacher in North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany. He finished school in 1912. He then studied maths, physics and astronomy at the universities of Münster and Göttingen. He received his PhD in 1919.[1]
Career
Baade worked at
From 1931 to 1958, he worked at Mount Wilson Observatory [2]
In 1937, the University of Hamburg wanted Baade as successor of Richard Schorr for the Hamburg Observatory, but he refused.[3]
At Mount Wilson Observatory, during
Together with Fritz Zwicky, he identified supernovae as a new category of astronomical objects.[7][8] Zwicky and he also proposed the existence of neutron stars, and suggested supernovae might create them.[9]
Beginning in 1952, he and Rudolph Minkowski identified the optical counterparts of various radio sources,[10] including Cygnus A. He discovered 10 asteroids, including 944 Hidalgo, which has a long orbital period (it is actually the first centaur ever discovered, although they were not recognized as a distinct dynamical class until 1977); the Apollo-class 1566 Icarus, the perihelion of which is closer than that of Mercury; and the Amor-type 1036 Ganymed.
Personal life
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He died in 1960 in Göttingen, West Germany.
Honors
930 Westphalia | March 10, 1920 |
934 Thüringia | August 15, 1920 |
944 Hidalgo | October 31, 1920 |
966 Muschi | November 9, 1921 |
967 Helionape | November 9, 1921 |
1036 Ganymed | October 23, 1924 |
1103 Sequoia | November 9, 1928 |
1566 Icarus | June 27, 1949 |
5656 Oldfield | October 8, 1920 |
7448 Pöllath |
January 14, 1948 |
Awards
- Foreign membership of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences (1953)[12]
- Elected Member of the American Philosophical Society (1953).[13]
- Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society (1954)
- Bruce Medal (1955)
- Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the American Astronomical Society (1958)
Named after him
- 1501 Baade
- The crater Baade on the Moon
- Vallis Baade, a vallis (valley) on the Moon
- One of the two Magellan telescopes
- The asteroid 966 Muschi, after his wife's nickname
See also
- Baade's Window, an observational area he identified in the 1940s as being relatively free of dust that presents a view of the Galactic Center in Sagittarius
- Baade's Star, now known as the Crab Pulsar, was first identified as being directly associated with the Crab Nebula by him.
References
- ^ Bibcode:2002DDA....33.1003O.
- ^ "1955 Brude Medalist". Sonoma State University. Retrieved 4 March 2016.
- ^ Hentschel, Klaus; Renneberg, Monika (1995). "Eine akademische Karriere. Der Astronom Otto Heckmann im Dritten Reich" (PDF). Vierteljahrshefte für Zeitgeschichte. 43 (4): 581–610.
{{cite journal}}
: CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ^ Baade W (1944) The resolution of Messier 32, NGC 205, and the central region of the Andromeda nebula. ApJ 100 137-146
- ^ Baade W (1956) The period-luminosity relation of the Cepheids. PASP 68 5-16
- ^ Allen, Nick. "Section 2: The Great Debate and the Great Mistake: Shapley, Hubble, Baade". The Cepheid Distance Scale: A History. Archived from the original on December 10, 2007.
- ^ W. Baade, F. Zwicky, 1934, "On Super-Novae". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 254-259.
- ISBN 0-691-04936-X.
- ^
Osterbrock, D. E. (2001). "Who Really Coined the Word Supernova? Who First Predicted Neutron Stars?". Bibcode:2001AAS...199.1501O.
- ^ Baade, W. and Minkowski, R., 1954. Identification of the Radio Sources in Cassiopeia, Cygnus A, and Puppis A. Astrophysical Journal, Vol. 119, p. 206-214 (January 1954) ADS: 1954ApJ...119..206B
- ^ "Minor Planet Discoverers (by number)". Minor Planet Center. 4 September 2016. Retrieved 7 September 2016.
- ^ "Walter H.W. Baade (1893 - 1960)". Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences. Retrieved 26 January 2016.
- ^ "APS Member History". search.amphilsoc.org. Retrieved 2023-02-06.
Further reading
- ISBN 0-691-04936-X.
- Dieke, Sally H. (1970). "Baade, Wilhelm Heinrich Walter". ISBN 0-684-10114-9.