- Seth Barnes Nicholson
Infobox Scientist
name = PAGENAME
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birth_date =November 12 ,1891
birth_place =Springfield, Illinois
death_date =July 2 ,1963
death_place = Los Angeles
residence = |citizenship =
nationality = American
ethnicity =
field =astronomy
work_institutions =Mount Wilson Observatory
alma_mater =Drake University
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prizes =Bruce Medal (1963)
religion = |footnotes = |Seth Barnes Nicholson (
November 12 ,1891 –July 2 ,1963 ) was an Americanastronomer .Nicholson was born inSpringfield, Illinois and was raised in ruralIllinois . He was educated atDrake University where he became interested in astronomy.In 1914, at the
University of California 'sLick Observatory , while observing the recently-discovered Jupiter moon Pasiphaë, he discovered a new one: Sinope, whoseorbit he computed for his Ph.D. thesis in 1915.He spent his entire career at
Mount Wilson Observatory , where he discovered three more Jovian moons: Lysithea and Carme in 1938 and Ananke in 1951, as well as aTrojan asteroid 1647 Menelaus , and computed orbits of severalcomet s and of Pluto.Sinope, Lysithea, Carme and Ananke were simply designated as "Jupiter IX", "Jupiter X", "Jupiter XI" and "Jupiter XII". They were not given their present names until 1975. Nicholson himself declined to propose names. [http://adsabs.harvard.edu//full/seri/PASP./0051//0000093.000.html]
At Mt. Wilson, his main assignment concerned
solar activity and he produced for decades annual reports onsunspot activity. He also made a number ofeclipse expeditions to measure the brightness and temperature of the Sun'scorona .In the early 1920s, he and
Edison Pettit made the first systematicinfrared observations of celestial objects.They used a vacuumthermocouple to measure the infrared radiation and thus the temperature of theMoon which led to the theory that the Moon was covered with a thin layer of dust acting as an insulator, and also of the planets, sunspots and stars.Their temperatures measurements of nearby giant stars led to some of the first determinations of stellar diameters.From 1943 to 1955, he served as editor of the "Publications of the
Astronomical Society of the Pacific ", of which he was also twice president.He died in Los Angeles.
Awards and honors
* Awarded the
Bruce Medal (1963)
* TheAsteroid 1831 Nicholson , Nicholson crater on theMoon , Nicholson crater on Mars, andNicholson Regio on Ganymede were named after him.
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