Donald E. Brownlee

Don Brownlee is a professor of astronomy at the University of Washington (Seattle ) and the Director of Research for the Stardust mission to comet Wild 2 Nasa His primary interests are the areas of astrobiology, comets, interstellar matter and " porsche evangelism ".

Training and work area

Brownlee studied electrical engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. He then attended the University of Washington where he received his Ph.D. in astronomy in 1971. Subsequently, he was from 1975 a member of the faculty in this university. He leads among other things, a research department as a " Distinguished Visiting Professor " at the astronomical department of the University of Chicago. Brownlee is co-author of two books with the paleontologist Peter Ward: Rare Earth: Why Complex Life is Uncommon in the Universe and The Life and Death of Planet Earth ( see also Rare Earth hypothesis).

Brownlee was in the 1970s, known for collecting interplanetary dust particles smaller ( Brownlee particles ) of high-flying U-2 airplanes. Unlike larger meteorites these survive entry into the Earth's atmosphere without excessive heating and then decline slowly.

Honors

In 1991, the asteroid was named 3259 by Brownlee. Also, a newly discovered mineral named after him. Brownleeit is also the first mineral that was found in a comet. He was honored by the National Academy of Sciences with the J. Lawrence Smith Medal, the Leonard Medal of the Meteoritical Society and the NASA Medal for Exceptional Scientific Achievement.