Gerard Peter Kuiper , was born
Gerrit Pieter Kuiper ' onMouseout='HidePop("35801")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Harenkarspel">Harenkarspel
Harenkarspel is a municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland and the region of West-Frisia.-Population centres :The municipality of Harenkarspel consists of the following villages: Dirkshorn, Eenigenburg, Groenveld, Kalverdijk, Kerkbuurt, Krabbendam, 't Rijpje, Schoorldam ,...
(
TuitjenhornTuitjenhorn is a town in the Dutch province of North Holland. It is a part of the municipality of Harenkarspel, Tuitjenhorn is the main town of the Harenkarspel municipality. Tuitjenhorn lies about 9 km northwest of Heerhugowaard.In 2001, the town of Tuitjenhorn had 2487 inhabitants...
),
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
– December 24, 1973,
Mexico CityMexico City is the capital city of Mexico. It is the economic, industrial, and cultural center in the country, and the most populous city, with about 8,836,045 inhabitants in 2008...
) was a
DutchThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
astronomerAstronomy is the scientific study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere...
who became a naturalized citizen of the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and lived most of his life in his new homeland.
Kuiper, the son of a tailor in the village of
TuitjenhornTuitjenhorn is a town in the Dutch province of North Holland. It is a part of the municipality of Harenkarspel, Tuitjenhorn is the main town of the Harenkarspel municipality. Tuitjenhorn lies about 9 km northwest of Heerhugowaard.In 2001, the town of Tuitjenhorn had 2487 inhabitants...
in
North HollandNorth Holland is a province situated on the North Sea in the northwest part of the Netherlands. The provincial capital is Haarlem and its largest city is Amsterdam.-Geography:...
, had an early interest in astronomy.
Gerard Peter Kuiper , was born
Gerrit Pieter Kuiper ' onMouseout='HidePop("35801")' href="http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Harenkarspel">Harenkarspel
Harenkarspel is a municipality in the Netherlands, in the province of North Holland and the region of West-Frisia.-Population centres :The municipality of Harenkarspel consists of the following villages: Dirkshorn, Eenigenburg, Groenveld, Kalverdijk, Kerkbuurt, Krabbendam, 't Rijpje, Schoorldam ,...
(
TuitjenhornTuitjenhorn is a town in the Dutch province of North Holland. It is a part of the municipality of Harenkarspel, Tuitjenhorn is the main town of the Harenkarspel municipality. Tuitjenhorn lies about 9 km northwest of Heerhugowaard.In 2001, the town of Tuitjenhorn had 2487 inhabitants...
),
NetherlandsThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
– December 24, 1973,
Mexico CityMexico City is the capital city of Mexico. It is the economic, industrial, and cultural center in the country, and the most populous city, with about 8,836,045 inhabitants in 2008...
) was a
DutchThe Netherlands is a country in Northwestern Europe, constituting the major portion of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. It is a parliamentary democratic constitutional monarchy. The Netherlands borders the North Sea to the north and west, Belgium to the south, and Germany to the east...
astronomerAstronomy is the scientific study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the Earth's atmosphere...
who became a naturalized citizen of the
United StatesThe United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
and lived most of his life in his new homeland.
Early life
Kuiper, the son of a tailor in the village of
TuitjenhornTuitjenhorn is a town in the Dutch province of North Holland. It is a part of the municipality of Harenkarspel, Tuitjenhorn is the main town of the Harenkarspel municipality. Tuitjenhorn lies about 9 km northwest of Heerhugowaard.In 2001, the town of Tuitjenhorn had 2487 inhabitants...
in
North HollandNorth Holland is a province situated on the North Sea in the northwest part of the Netherlands. The provincial capital is Haarlem and its largest city is Amsterdam.-Geography:...
, had an early interest in astronomy. He had extraordinarily sharp eyesight, allowing him to see
magnitudeThe apparent magnitude of a celestial body is a measure of its brightness as seen by an observer on Earth, normalized to the value it would have in the absence of the atmosphere...
7.5 stars with the naked eye, about four times fainter than visible to normal eyes. He went to study at
Leiden UniversityLeiden University , located in the city of Leiden, is the oldest university in the Netherlands. The university was founded in 1575 by Prince William of Orange, leader of the Dutch Revolt in the Eighty Years' War. The royal Dutch House of Orange-Nassau and Leiden University still have a close...
in 1924, where at the time a very large number of astronomers had congregated. He befriended fellow students
Bart BokBart Jan Bok was a Dutch-American astronomer.He was born in the Netherlands, and educated at the Leiden and Groningen Universities. In 1929 he married fellow astronomer Dr. Priscilla Fairfield Bok, and for the remainder of their lives the two collaborated closely on their astronomical work...
and
Pieter OosterhoffPieter Theodorus Oosterhoff was a Dutch astronomer.He was the co-administrator, along with Jan Oort, of the Leiden Observatory in the Netherlands....
and was taught by
Ejnar HertzsprungEjnar Hertzsprung was a Danish chemist and astronomer.Hertzsprung was born at Copenhagen. In the period 1911-1913, together with Henry Norris Russell, he developed the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram....
,
Antonie PannekoekAntonie Pannekoek was a Dutch astronomer and Marxist theorist.- Biography :...
,
Willem de SitterWillem de Sitter was a Dutch mathematician, physicist and astronomer.Born in Sneek, De Sitter studied mathematics at the University of Groningen and then joined the Groningen astronomical laboratory. He worked at the Cape Observatory in South Africa . Then, in 1908, de Sitter was appointed to the...
,
Jan WoltjerJan Woltjer was a Dutch astronomer.Woltjer was the son of the classical scholar Jan Woltjer. On Dec 13, 1916 he married Hillegonda de Vries in Groningen. He worked and taught at Leiden University, where Gerard P. Kuiper was one of his students...
,
Jan OortJan Hendrik Oort was a Dutch astronomer. He stimulated radio astronomy. The Oort cloud of comets bears his name....
and the physicist
Paul EhrenfestPaul Ehrenfest was an Austrian physicist and mathematician, who obtained Dutch citizenship on March 24, 1922. He made major contributions to the field of statistical mechanics and its relations with quantum mechanics, including the theory of phase transition and the Ehrenfest theorem...
. He received his B.Sc. in Astronomy in 1927 and continued straight on with his graduate studies. Kuiper finished his doctoral thesis on
binary starA binary star is a star system consisting of two stars orbiting around their common center of mass. The brighter star is called the primary and the other is its companion star, comes, or secondary...
s with Hertzsprung in 1933, after which he immediately traveled to
CaliforniaCalifornia is the most populous state in the United States, and the third largest by area. California is the second most populous sub-national entity in the Americas, behind only São Paulo, Brazil...
to become a fellow under
Robert Grant AitkenRobert Grant Aitken was an American astronomer.He worked at Lick Observatory in California. He systematically studied double stars, measuring their positions and calculating their orbits around one another...
at the
Lick ObservatoryThe Lick Observatory is an astronomical observatory, owned and operated by the University of California. It is situated on the summit of Mount Hamilton, in the Diablo Range just east of San Jose, California, USA...
. In 1935 he left to work at the
Harvard College ObservatoryThe Harvard College Observatory is an institution managing a complex of buildings and multiple instruments used for astronomical research by the Harvard University Department of Astronomy. It is located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA, and was founded in 1839...
where he met Sarah Parker Fuller, whom he married on June 20, 1936. Although he had planned to move to
JavaJava is an island of Indonesia and the site of its capital city, Jakarta. Once the centre of powerful Hindu-Buddhist kingdoms, Islamic sultanates, and the core of the colonial Dutch East Indies, Java now plays a dominant role in the economic and political life of Indonesia...
to work at the
Bosscha ObservatoryBosscha Observatory is the oldest observatory in Indonesia. The observatory is located in Lembang, West Java, approximately north of Bandung. It is situated on a hilly six hectares of land and is above mean sea level plateau...
, he took a position at the
Yerkes ObservatoryYerkes Observatory, is an astronomical observatory operated by the University of Chicago in Williams Bay, Wisconsin. The observatory, which calls itself "the birthplace of modern astrophysics,", was founded in 1897 by George Ellery Hale and financed by Charles T. Yerkes...
of the
University of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private, coeducational research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by oil magnate and benefactor John D...
and became an American citizen in 1937. In 1949, Kuiper initiated the Yerkes - McDonald asteroid survey (1950 - 1952).
Discoveries
Kuiper discovered two
natural satelliteA natural satellite or moon is a celestial body that orbits a planet or smaller body, which is called the primary. Technically, the term natural satellite could refer to a planet orbiting a star, or a dwarf galaxy orbiting a major galaxy, but it is normally synonymous with moon and used to identify...
s of
planetA planet , is a celestial body orbiting a star or stellar remnant that is massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, is not massive enough to cause thermonuclear fusion, and has cleared its neighbouring region of planetesimals.The term planet is ancient, with ties to history, science,...
s in the
solar systemThe Solar System consists of the Sun and those celestial objects bound to it by gravity, all of which formed from the collapse of a giant molecular cloud approximately 4.6 billion years ago...
, namely
UranusUranus is the seventh planet from the Sun, and the third-largest and fourth most massive planet in the Solar System. It is named after the ancient Greek deity of the sky Uranus the father of Kronos and grandfather of Zeus...
's satellite
MirandaMiranda is the smallest and innermost of Uranus' five major moons.It was discovered by Gerard Kuiper on 1948-02-16 at McDonald Observatory. It was named after Miranda from William Shakespeare's play The Tempest by Kuiper in his report of the discovery. The adjectival form of the name is Mirandan...
and
NeptuneNeptune is the eighth planet from the Sun in our Solar System. Named for the Roman god of the sea, it is the fourth-largest planet by diameter and the third-largest by mass. Neptune is 17 times the mass of Earth and is slightly more massive than its near-twin Uranus, which is 15 Earth masses and...
's satellite
NereidNereid , also known as Neptune II, is a moon of Neptune.Nereid was discovered on May 1, 1949 by Gerard P. Kuiper, who proposed the name in the report of his discovery. It is named after the Nereids, sea-nymphs of Greek mythology.Nereid was the outermost known moon of Neptune from its discovery...
. In addition, he discovered
carbon dioxideCarbon dioxide is a chemical compound composed of two oxygen atoms covalently bonded to a single carbon atom. It is a gas at standard temperature and pressure and exists in Earth's atmosphere in this state...
in the atmosphere of
MarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after Mars, the Roman god of war. It is also referred to as the "Red Planet" because of its reddish appearance, due to iron oxide prevalent on its surface....
and the existence of a
methaneMethane is a chemical compound with the chemical formula . It is the simplest alkane, and the principal component of natural gas. Methane's bond angles are 109.5 degrees. Burning methane in the presence of oxygen produces carbon dioxide and water. The relative abundance of methane and its clean...
-laced atmosphere above
SaturnSaturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest planet in the Solar System, after Jupiter. Saturn, along with Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune, is classified as a gas giant...
's satellite
TitanTitan , or Saturn VI, is the largest moon of Saturn, the only moon known to have a dense atmosphere,
and the only object other than Earth for which clear evidence of stable bodies of surface liquid has been found....
in 1944. Kuiper also pioneered airborne infrared observing using a
Convair 990The Convair 990 Coronado was a jet airliner produced by the Convair division of General Dynamics, a "stretched" version of their earlier Convair 880 produced in response to a request from American Airlines. The 990 was lengthened by 10 feet, which increased the number of passengers from between 88...
aircraft in the 1960s.
Kuiper spent most of his career at the
University of ChicagoThe University of Chicago is a private, coeducational research university in Chicago, Illinois, USA. It was founded by oil magnate and benefactor John D...
, but moved to Tucson,
ArizonaThe State of Arizona is a state located in the southwestern region of the United States. The capital and largest city is Phoenix. The second largest city is Tucson, followed in size by the four Phoenix metropolitan area cities of Mesa, Glendale, Chandler, and Scottsdale.Arizona was the 48th and...
in 1960 to found the
Lunar and Planetary LaboratoryThe Lunar and Planetary Laboratory is a research center for planetary science located in Tucson, Arizona. It is also a graduate school, constituting the Department of Planetary Sciences at the University of Arizona. LPL is one of the world's largest programs dedicated exclusively to planetary...
at the
University of ArizonaThe University of Arizona is a land-grant and space-grant public institution of higher education and research located in Tucson, Arizona, United States. The University of Arizona was the first university in the state of Arizona, founded in 1885...
. Kuiper was the laboratory's director until his death in 1973 while on vacation with his wife in Mexico. One of the three buildings at Arizona that makes up the LPL is named in his honor.
In the 1960s, Kuiper helped identify
landingthumb|right|A [[Mute Swan]] alighting. Note the ruffled feathers on top of the wings indicate that the swan is flying at the [[Stall |stall]]ing speed...
sites on the
moonThe Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is , about thirty times the diameter of the Earth. The common centre of mass of the system is located at about —a quarter the Earth's...
for the Apollo program.
Kuiper discovered several binary stars which received "Kuiper numbers" to identify them, such as KUI 79.
Honors
- In 1947, Kuiper was awarded the Janssen Medal of the Astronomical Society of France.
- In 1959, Kuiper won the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship
The Henry Norris Russell Lectureship is awarded each year by the American Astronomical Society in recognition of a lifetime of excellence in astronomical research.-Previous lecturers:This list of lecturers is from the American Astronomical Society's website....
of the American Astronomical SocietyThe American Astronomical Society is a US society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The basic objective of the AAS is to promote the advancement of astronomy and closely related branches of science...
.
- In 1971, Kuiper received the Kepler Gold Medal from the American Association for the Advancement of Science and the Franklin Institute.
Besides the
minor planetAn asteroid group or minor planet group is a population of minor planets that have a share broadly similar orbits. Members are generally unrelated to each other, unlike in an asteroid family, which often results from the break-up of a single asteroid...
1776 Kuiper1776 Kuiper is a Main-belt Asteroid discovered on September 24, 1960 by Cornelis Johannes van Houten, Ingrid van Houten-Groeneveld and Tom Gehrels at Palomar Observatory.- External links :*...
, the crater
KuiperKuiper is a small lunar impact crater in a relatively featureless part of the Mare Cognitum. It is a circular, cup-shaped feature with only some minor wear. This crater was previously identified as Bonpland E before being renamed by the IAU...
on the
MoonThe Moon is Earth's only natural satellite and the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System. The average centre-to-centre distance from the Earth to the Moon is , about thirty times the diameter of the Earth. The common centre of mass of the system is located at about —a quarter the Earth's...
,
cratersIn the broadest sense, the term impact crater can be applied to any depression, natural or manmade, resulting from the high velocity impact of a projectile with a larger body...
on
MarsMars is the fourth planet from the Sun in the Solar System. The planet is named after Mars, the Roman god of war. It is also referred to as the "Red Planet" because of its reddish appearance, due to iron oxide prevalent on its surface....
and
MercuryFor the liquid metallic element, see Mercury .Mercury is the innermost and smallest planet in the Solar System, orbiting the Sun once every 87.969 days. The orbit of Mercury has the highest eccentricity of all the Solar System planets, and it has the smallest axial tilt. It completes three...
, the now-decommissioned
Kuiper Airborne ObservatoryThe Gerard P. Kuiper Airborne Observatory was a national facility operated by NASA to support research in infrared astronomy. The observation platform was a highly modified C-141A jet transport aircraft with a range of 6,000 nautical miles, capable of conducting research operations up to 45,000...
was also named after him.
Most astronomers refer to a region of small planets beyond Neptune as the "
Kuiper beltThe Kuiper belt , sometimes called the Edgeworth-Kuiper belt, is a region of the Solar System beyond the planets extending from the orbit of Neptune to approximately 55 AU from the Sun. It is similar to the asteroid belt, although it is far larger—20 times as wide and 20–200 times as massive...
", since Kuiper had suggested that such small planets or comets may have formed there. However he believed that such objects would have been swept clear by planetary gravitational perturbations so that none or few would exist there today.
The Kuiper Prize, named in his honor, is the most distinguished award given by the
American Astronomical SocietyThe American Astronomical Society is a US society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The basic objective of the AAS is to promote the advancement of astronomy and closely related branches of science...
's
Division for Planetary SciencesThe Division for Planetary Sciences is a division within the American Astronomical Society devoted to solar system research. It was founded in 1968. The first organizing committee members were: Edward Anders, L. Branscomb, J. W. Chamberlain, R. Goody, J. S. Hall, A. Kliore, M. B. Elroy, Tobias...
, an international society of professional planetary scientists. The prize recognizes outstanding contributors to
planetary sciencePlanetary science is the scientific study of planets, moons, and planetary systems, in particular those of the Solar System and the processes that form them. It studies objects ranging in size from micrometeoroids to gas giants, aiming to determine their composition, dynamics, formation,...
, and is awarded annually to scientists whose lifetime achievements have most advanced our understanding of planetary systems. Winners of this award include
Carl SaganCarl Edward Sagan was an American astronomer, astrochemist, author, and highly successful popularizer of astronomy, astrophysics and other natural sciences...
,
James Van AllenJames Alfred Van Allen was an American space scientist at the University of Iowa. The Van Allen radiation belts were named after him, following the 1958 satellite missions in which Van Allen had argued that a Geiger counter should be used to detect charged particles.-Honors:* TIME magazine Man of...
, and Eugene Shoemaker.
External links