Gordon Pettengill

Gordon Hemenway Pettengill ( born February 10, 1926 in Providence ) is an American radio astronomer.

Pettengill studied physics at MIT and at the University of California, Berkeley, interrupted by military service in Europe during the Second World War. After that, he conducted research in the field of radar astronomy, where he could at Lincoln Laboratory received the first echo from Venus 1958 ( Earth - Venus - Earth connection ).

In 1997, he received the Charles A. Whitten Medal of the American Geophysical Union. The asteroid ( 3831 ) Pettengill is named after him.