George O. Abell

George Ogden Abell ( born March 1, 1927 in Los Angeles, † October 7, 1983 in Encino, California ) was an American astronomer.

Life

Abell graduated with a Bachelor of Science ( 1951), a Master of Science (1952 ) and a doctoral degree ( Ph.D. 1957) at the California Institute of Technology ( CalTech ). He was a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles. Among the subjects of his research included, among other things, planetary nebulae, but particularly noteworthy is its contribution to the beginnings of observational cosmology. Based on the Palomar Observatory Sky Survey, he created since the 1950s, the Abell catalog of galaxy clusters, which allows the structure of the universe could be investigated up to a redshift of about 0.2 for the first time, and has remained important.

Abell is co-discoverer of the comet 52P/Harrington-Abell. The asteroid ( 3449 ) Abell is named after him. He was also a member of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry, an internationally operating organization of the skeptics movement.