Guido Münch

Guido Münch Paniagua ( born June 9, 1921 in San Cristobal de las Casas, Mexico) is a Mexican astronomer and astrophysicist.

Münch studied civil engineering and mathematics at the National Autonomous University of Mexico with a Bachelor degree in Civil Engineering and Mathematics in 1939 and the Master degree in Mathematics in 1943. Afterwards he went to the University of Chicago, where he became in 1946 a Ph.D. in Astronomy and Astrophysics ( Problems of radiative transfer in the theory of stellar atmospheres ). He then went to the Tacubaya Observatory of the University of Mexico, but returned in 1947 as an instructor at the University of Chicago, where he was an Assistant Professor in 1949. He was there at the Yerkes Observatory and worked with the astrophysicist Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar on radiative transfer in stars. He also came through contacts with Gerhard Herzberg and William Wilson Morgan for astronomical spectroscopy. From 1951 he was at Caltech, where he became a professor and worked at the Mount Wilson and Palomar Observatory. He was from 1977 to 1991 director of the Max Planck Institute for Astronomy in Heidelberg and a professor at the university. He has worked at the German - Spanish Calar Alto Observatory and the Instituto de Astrofísica de Canarias in Tenerife (1992 to 1996).

Münch dealt with the theory of stellar atmospheres, Stellarspektroskopie, interstellar matter, spectroscopy of nebulae, structure of galaxies and solar physics and planetary science. He worked both observational and theoretical.

He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (1962), the National Academy of Sciences ( 1969) and since 1982, a founding member of the Third World Academy of Sciences. In 1968, he received the NASA Exceptional Scientific Medal of Merit for his participation in the Mariner, Viking and Pioneer missions ( infrared radiometry ). He holds honorary doctorates from the National Mexican Institute for Astrophysics, Optics and Elektronik.1989 he received the Prince of Asturias Award. 1944 and 1958, he was a Guggenheim Fellow. In 1998 he received the Spanish Order of Alfonso X, el sabio with a large cross. 1989 organized the International Astronomical Union, a conference in his honor in Granada.

His PhD is one of James E. Gunn.

Writings

  • Interstellar Absorption Lines in Distant Stars, Astrophys. J., 1957
  • The Theory of Model Stellar Atmospheres Model, in Jesse Greenstein Stellar Atmospheres, University of Chicago Press 1960
  • An Analysis of the Spectrum of Mars, Astrophys. Journal, Volume 139, 1964
  • Galactic Structure and Interstellar Absorption Lines, Adriaan Blaauw in, Maarten Schmidt Galactic Structure, University of Chicago Press, 1965
  • Laurence M. Trafton The Structure of the Atmosphere on the Major Planets, Journal of the Atmospheric Sciences, Volume 26, 1969, p 813
  • Donald M. Hunten Helium Abundance on Jupiter, Space Science Reviews, Volume 14, 1973, p 433-443
San Cristóbal de las Casas Civil Order of Alfonso X, the Wise
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