Gart Westerhout
Encyclopedia
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
astronomer. Well before completing his university studies at Leiden, he had already become well-established internationally as a radio astronomer in The Netherlands, specializing in studies of radio sources and the Milky Way Galaxy based on observations of radio continuum emissions and 21-cm spectral line radiation
Radiation
In physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing...
that originates in interstellar hydrogen
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...
. He emigrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, became a naturalized citizen, and held a number of important scientific and management positions in academic and government institutions.
Westerhout studied at the University of Leiden (Sterrewacht te Leiden
Leiden Observatory
Leiden Observatory is an astronomical observatory in the city of Leiden, Netherlands. It was established by Leiden University in 1633, to house the quadrant of Snellius, and is the oldest operating University observatory in the world Leiden Observatory (Sterrewacht Leiden in Dutch) is an...
) with Hendrik van de Hulst and Jan Hendrik Oort. Contemporaries and colleagues in Holland included Hugo van Woerden, C. Lex Muller, Maarten Schmidt
Maarten Schmidt
Maarten Schmidt is a Dutch astronomer who measured the distances of quasars.Born in Groningen, The Netherlands, Schmidt studied with Jan Hendrik Oort. He earned his Ph.D. degree from Leiden Observatory in 1956....
, Kwee Kiem King, Lodewijk Woltjer, and Charles L. Seeger, Jr. (son of the ethnomusicologist
Charles Seeger
Charles Seeger, Jr. was a noted musicologist, composer, and teacher. He was the father of iconic American folk singer Pete Seeger .-Life:...
, brother of Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
and half-brother of Mike Seeger
Mike Seeger
Mike Seeger was an American folk musician and folklorist. He was a distinctive singer and an accomplished musician who played autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar, mouth harp, mandolin, dobro, jaw harp, and pan pipes. Seeger, a half-brother of Pete Seeger, produced more than 30 documentary...
). While they were students, Wim Brouw, Mike Davis, Ernst Raimond, Whitney Shane and Jaap Tinbergen worked with him.
He was awarded Physics and Astronomy degrees: Cand.(1950) and Drs. (1954) and was awarded a Ph.D. in Astronomy and Physics in 1958. Notable scientific achievements included: the significant Westerhout Catalog of continuum emission radio sources, by which "W" numerical designations such sources are still referenced (see for example Westerhout 49
Westerhout 49
Westerhout 49 or W49, is a strong galactic thermal radio source characteristic of an HII region. It was discovered by Gart Westerhout in 1958. Its distance is estimated to be about 14-15 kpcs and it lies in the galactic plane about the same distance from the galactic centre as does the Sun. It has...
), done with the then-new Dwingeloo telescope; and his survey of neutral hydrogen in the outer parts of our Galaxy. His pioneering work, with colleagues, showed the first hints of local spiral structure in the interstellar gas, revealed differential rotation in our Galaxy, and established the now-standard Galactic coordinate
system with the zero-points of latitude and longitude.
While still at Leiden University, he held the posts of Assistant (1952–56), Scientific Officer (1956–59, and Chief Scientific Officer (1959–62). Arriving in 1962 as the new Director, he grew a fledgling astronomy program at the University of Maryland
University of Maryland, College Park
The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...
(started by Uco van Wijk
Uco van Wijk
Uco van Wijk was a Dutch astronomer and educator who founded the astronomy program at the University of Maryland and was instrumental in bringing Gart Westerhout from Holland to become Department Head.-Honors:* The crater Van Wijk on the Moon is named after him.* The astronomy library at the...
) into a fully robust astronomy program granting masters and doctorate degrees. The Maryland-Green Bank Galactic 21-cm Line Survey not only extended, at higher angular resolution, our knowledge of Galactic structure, but also accomplished the training of graduate students who went on to notable achievements of their own.
He continued at Maryland in that role through 1973, with additional responsibilities from 1972-73 as Chairman of the Division of Mathematical & Physical Sciences and Engineering. From 1973-77 he was Professor of Astronomy at the University of Maryland, temporarily becoming Visiting Astronomer at the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie (MPIfR) in Bonn, Germany 1973-74.
From 1977-1993 he was Scientific Director at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, DC. While there, he guided the evolution of that observatory toward astronomical data obtained from telescopes at the Flagstaff station, astrometric data produced by the techniques of radio interferometry and by innovative application of optical interferometry techniques (ground- and space-based.)
Gart and Judith Westerhout live in Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
. They had 4 children - Magda Kathleen, Gart, Bridget and Julian.
When Edward L. G. Bowell
Edward L. G. Bowell
Edward L. G. Bowell , known as "Ted", is an American astronomer. Bowell was educated at Emanuel School London, University College, London, and the Université de Paris....
discovered asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
5105 Westerhout
Meanings of asteroid names (5001-5500)
- References :...
, he named it in Westerhout's honor.
Memberships
Memberships include International Astronomical Union (IAU) (Commissions 33, 34, 40, 24 & 5),International Scientific Radio Union (URSI), American Astronomical Society (AAS), Royal Astronomical Society, and Sigma Xi.
He has contributed broadly and generously of his scientific and management expertise, for example to IAU, National Science Foundation (NSF), AAS, National Research Council, Associated Universities Inc., Inter-Union Committee for the Allocation of Frequencies (IUCAF), URSI, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, MPIfR, MIT's Haystack Observatory, Arecibo Observatory, National Academy of Sciences.
Awards
Awards and special recognition have included a NATO Fellowship, CSIRO (Australia) Fellowship,Award for the Teaching of Science, Washington Academy of Sciences, Humboldt Prize, Listings in : Outstanding Educators of America, American Men and Women in Science, Who's Who in America.
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
) is a Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
astronomer. Well before completing his university studies at Leiden, he had already become well-established internationally as a radio astronomer in The Netherlands, specializing in studies of radio sources and the Milky Way Galaxy based on observations of radio continuum emissions and 21-cm spectral line radiation
Radiation
In physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing...
that originates in interstellar hydrogen
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...
. He emigrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, became a naturalized citizen, and held a number of important scientific and management positions in academic and government institutions.
Westerhout studied at the University of Leiden (Sterrewacht te Leiden
Leiden Observatory
Leiden Observatory is an astronomical observatory in the city of Leiden, Netherlands. It was established by Leiden University in 1633, to house the quadrant of Snellius, and is the oldest operating University observatory in the world Leiden Observatory (Sterrewacht Leiden in Dutch) is an...
) with Hendrik van de Hulst and Jan Hendrik Oort. Contemporaries and colleagues in Holland included Hugo van Woerden, C. Lex Muller, Maarten Schmidt
Maarten Schmidt
Maarten Schmidt is a Dutch astronomer who measured the distances of quasars.Born in Groningen, The Netherlands, Schmidt studied with Jan Hendrik Oort. He earned his Ph.D. degree from Leiden Observatory in 1956....
, Kwee Kiem King, Lodewijk Woltjer, and Charles L. Seeger, Jr. (son of the ethnomusicologist
Charles Seeger
Charles Seeger, Jr. was a noted musicologist, composer, and teacher. He was the father of iconic American folk singer Pete Seeger .-Life:...
, brother of Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
and half-brother of Mike Seeger
Mike Seeger
Mike Seeger was an American folk musician and folklorist. He was a distinctive singer and an accomplished musician who played autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar, mouth harp, mandolin, dobro, jaw harp, and pan pipes. Seeger, a half-brother of Pete Seeger, produced more than 30 documentary...
). While they were students, Wim Brouw, Mike Davis, Ernst Raimond, Whitney Shane and Jaap Tinbergen worked with him.
He was awarded Physics and Astronomy degrees: Cand.(1950) and Drs. (1954) and was awarded a Ph.D. in Astronomy and Physics in 1958. Notable scientific achievements included: the significant Westerhout Catalog of continuum emission radio sources, by which "W" numerical designations such sources are still referenced (see for example Westerhout 49
Westerhout 49
Westerhout 49 or W49, is a strong galactic thermal radio source characteristic of an HII region. It was discovered by Gart Westerhout in 1958. Its distance is estimated to be about 14-15 kpcs and it lies in the galactic plane about the same distance from the galactic centre as does the Sun. It has...
), done with the then-new Dwingeloo telescope; and his survey of neutral hydrogen in the outer parts of our Galaxy. His pioneering work, with colleagues, showed the first hints of local spiral structure in the interstellar gas, revealed differential rotation in our Galaxy, and established the now-standard Galactic coordinate
system with the zero-points of latitude and longitude.
While still at Leiden University, he held the posts of Assistant (1952–56), Scientific Officer (1956–59, and Chief Scientific Officer (1959–62). Arriving in 1962 as the new Director, he grew a fledgling astronomy program at the University of Maryland
University of Maryland, College Park
The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...
(started by Uco van Wijk
Uco van Wijk
Uco van Wijk was a Dutch astronomer and educator who founded the astronomy program at the University of Maryland and was instrumental in bringing Gart Westerhout from Holland to become Department Head.-Honors:* The crater Van Wijk on the Moon is named after him.* The astronomy library at the...
) into a fully robust astronomy program granting masters and doctorate degrees. The Maryland-Green Bank Galactic 21-cm Line Survey not only extended, at higher angular resolution, our knowledge of Galactic structure, but also accomplished the training of graduate students who went on to notable achievements of their own.
He continued at Maryland in that role through 1973, with additional responsibilities from 1972-73 as Chairman of the Division of Mathematical & Physical Sciences and Engineering. From 1973-77 he was Professor of Astronomy at the University of Maryland, temporarily becoming Visiting Astronomer at the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie (MPIfR) in Bonn, Germany 1973-74.
From 1977-1993 he was Scientific Director at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, DC. While there, he guided the evolution of that observatory toward astronomical data obtained from telescopes at the Flagstaff station, astrometric data produced by the techniques of radio interferometry and by innovative application of optical interferometry techniques (ground- and space-based.)
Gart and Judith Westerhout live in Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
. They had 4 children - Magda Kathleen, Gart, Bridget and Julian.
When Edward L. G. Bowell
Edward L. G. Bowell
Edward L. G. Bowell , known as "Ted", is an American astronomer. Bowell was educated at Emanuel School London, University College, London, and the Université de Paris....
discovered asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
5105 Westerhout
Meanings of asteroid names (5001-5500)
- References :...
, he named it in Westerhout's honor.
Memberships
Memberships include International Astronomical Union (IAU) (Commissions 33, 34, 40, 24 & 5),International Scientific Radio Union (URSI), American Astronomical Society (AAS), Royal Astronomical Society, and Sigma Xi.
He has contributed broadly and generously of his scientific and management expertise, for example to IAU, National Science Foundation (NSF), AAS, National Research Council, Associated Universities Inc., Inter-Union Committee for the Allocation of Frequencies (IUCAF), URSI, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, MPIfR, MIT's Haystack Observatory, Arecibo Observatory, National Academy of Sciences.
Awards
Awards and special recognition have included a NATO Fellowship, CSIRO (Australia) Fellowship,Award for the Teaching of Science, Washington Academy of Sciences, Humboldt Prize, Listings in : Outstanding Educators of America, American Men and Women in Science, Who's Who in America.
The Hague
The Hague is the capital city of the province of South Holland in the Netherlands. With a population of 500,000 inhabitants , it is the third largest city of the Netherlands, after Amsterdam and Rotterdam...
) is a Dutch
Netherlands
The Netherlands is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands, located mainly in North-West Europe and with several islands in the Caribbean. Mainland Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east, and shares maritime borders...
astronomer. Well before completing his university studies at Leiden, he had already become well-established internationally as a radio astronomer in The Netherlands, specializing in studies of radio sources and the Milky Way Galaxy based on observations of radio continuum emissions and 21-cm spectral line radiation
Radiation
In physics, radiation is a process in which energetic particles or energetic waves travel through a medium or space. There are two distinct types of radiation; ionizing and non-ionizing...
that originates in interstellar hydrogen
Hydrogen
Hydrogen is the chemical element with atomic number 1. It is represented by the symbol H. With an average atomic weight of , hydrogen is the lightest and most abundant chemical element, constituting roughly 75% of the Universe's chemical elemental mass. Stars in the main sequence are mainly...
. He emigrated to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
, became a naturalized citizen, and held a number of important scientific and management positions in academic and government institutions.
Westerhout studied at the University of Leiden (Sterrewacht te Leiden
Leiden Observatory
Leiden Observatory is an astronomical observatory in the city of Leiden, Netherlands. It was established by Leiden University in 1633, to house the quadrant of Snellius, and is the oldest operating University observatory in the world Leiden Observatory (Sterrewacht Leiden in Dutch) is an...
) with Hendrik van de Hulst and Jan Hendrik Oort. Contemporaries and colleagues in Holland included Hugo van Woerden, C. Lex Muller, Maarten Schmidt
Maarten Schmidt
Maarten Schmidt is a Dutch astronomer who measured the distances of quasars.Born in Groningen, The Netherlands, Schmidt studied with Jan Hendrik Oort. He earned his Ph.D. degree from Leiden Observatory in 1956....
, Kwee Kiem King, Lodewijk Woltjer, and Charles L. Seeger, Jr. (son of the ethnomusicologist
Charles Seeger
Charles Seeger, Jr. was a noted musicologist, composer, and teacher. He was the father of iconic American folk singer Pete Seeger .-Life:...
, brother of Pete Seeger
Pete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
and half-brother of Mike Seeger
Mike Seeger
Mike Seeger was an American folk musician and folklorist. He was a distinctive singer and an accomplished musician who played autoharp, banjo, fiddle, dulcimer, guitar, mouth harp, mandolin, dobro, jaw harp, and pan pipes. Seeger, a half-brother of Pete Seeger, produced more than 30 documentary...
). While they were students, Wim Brouw, Mike Davis, Ernst Raimond, Whitney Shane and Jaap Tinbergen worked with him.
He was awarded Physics and Astronomy degrees: Cand.(1950) and Drs. (1954) and was awarded a Ph.D. in Astronomy and Physics in 1958. Notable scientific achievements included: the significant Westerhout Catalog of continuum emission radio sources, by which "W" numerical designations such sources are still referenced (see for example Westerhout 49
Westerhout 49
Westerhout 49 or W49, is a strong galactic thermal radio source characteristic of an HII region. It was discovered by Gart Westerhout in 1958. Its distance is estimated to be about 14-15 kpcs and it lies in the galactic plane about the same distance from the galactic centre as does the Sun. It has...
), done with the then-new Dwingeloo telescope; and his survey of neutral hydrogen in the outer parts of our Galaxy. His pioneering work, with colleagues, showed the first hints of local spiral structure in the interstellar gas, revealed differential rotation in our Galaxy, and established the now-standard Galactic coordinate
system with the zero-points of latitude and longitude.
While still at Leiden University, he held the posts of Assistant (1952–56), Scientific Officer (1956–59, and Chief Scientific Officer (1959–62). Arriving in 1962 as the new Director, he grew a fledgling astronomy program at the University of Maryland
University of Maryland, College Park
The University of Maryland, College Park is a top-ranked public research university located in the city of College Park in Prince George's County, Maryland, just outside Washington, D.C...
(started by Uco van Wijk
Uco van Wijk
Uco van Wijk was a Dutch astronomer and educator who founded the astronomy program at the University of Maryland and was instrumental in bringing Gart Westerhout from Holland to become Department Head.-Honors:* The crater Van Wijk on the Moon is named after him.* The astronomy library at the...
) into a fully robust astronomy program granting masters and doctorate degrees. The Maryland-Green Bank Galactic 21-cm Line Survey not only extended, at higher angular resolution, our knowledge of Galactic structure, but also accomplished the training of graduate students who went on to notable achievements of their own.
He continued at Maryland in that role through 1973, with additional responsibilities from 1972-73 as Chairman of the Division of Mathematical & Physical Sciences and Engineering. From 1973-77 he was Professor of Astronomy at the University of Maryland, temporarily becoming Visiting Astronomer at the Max-Planck-Institut für Radioastronomie (MPIfR) in Bonn, Germany 1973-74.
From 1977-1993 he was Scientific Director at the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington, DC. While there, he guided the evolution of that observatory toward astronomical data obtained from telescopes at the Flagstaff station, astrometric data produced by the techniques of radio interferometry and by innovative application of optical interferometry techniques (ground- and space-based.)
Gart and Judith Westerhout live in Baltimore
Baltimore
Baltimore is the largest independent city in the United States and the largest city and cultural center of the US state of Maryland. The city is located in central Maryland along the tidal portion of the Patapsco River, an arm of the Chesapeake Bay. Baltimore is sometimes referred to as Baltimore...
. They had 4 children - Magda Kathleen, Gart, Bridget and Julian.
When Edward L. G. Bowell
Edward L. G. Bowell
Edward L. G. Bowell , known as "Ted", is an American astronomer. Bowell was educated at Emanuel School London, University College, London, and the Université de Paris....
discovered asteroid
Asteroid
Asteroids are a class of small Solar System bodies in orbit around the Sun. They have also been called planetoids, especially the larger ones...
5105 Westerhout
Meanings of asteroid names (5001-5500)
- References :...
, he named it in Westerhout's honor.
Memberships
Memberships include International Astronomical Union (IAU) (Commissions 33, 34, 40, 24 & 5),International Scientific Radio Union (URSI), American Astronomical Society (AAS), Royal Astronomical Society, and Sigma Xi.
He has contributed broadly and generously of his scientific and management expertise, for example to IAU, National Science Foundation (NSF), AAS, National Research Council, Associated Universities Inc., Inter-Union Committee for the Allocation of Frequencies (IUCAF), URSI, National Radio Astronomy Observatory, MPIfR, MIT's Haystack Observatory, Arecibo Observatory, National Academy of Sciences.
Awards
Awards and special recognition have included a NATO Fellowship, CSIRO (Australia) Fellowship,Award for the Teaching of Science, Washington Academy of Sciences, Humboldt Prize, Listings in : Outstanding Educators of America, American Men and Women in Science, Who's Who in America.
