Martin Harwit

Otto Martin Harwit ( born March 9, 1931 in Prague) is an American physicist and astronomer.

Life

In his first one and a half years at school he was taught in Czech and German. When he was 8 years old, his father, a biochemist, professor in Istanbul, he received further education in Turkish and English. At 15, he immigrated to the United States. In 1960 he earned his doctorate in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). In another study with Fred Hoyle in Cambridge, he moved to Cornell University.

As one of the first he used rockets to infrared detectors on the Earth's atmosphere to lift, making it one of the pioneers of infrared astronomy. Later he used the Kuiper Airborne Observatory as Flugzeugobservatorien and various space telescopes. He was one of the original planners of the ' Great Observatories ' NASA program, consisting of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory, Hubble Space Telescope, Chandra X - Ray Observatory, and Spitzer Space Telescope. From 1987 to 1995 he was director of the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington. His resignation from that position following a public controversy over the representation of the first atomic bomb in a planned exhibition of the museum.

Asteroid

The discovered on September 24, 1960 Asteroid 12143 Harwit was named after the astronomer.

Works

  • Astrophysical Concepts ( 1st edition 1973, 4th edition 2006) ISBN 978-0-387-32943-7
  • Cosmic Discovery: The Search, Scope and Heritage of Astronomy (1981 ) ISBN 978-0-7108-0089-3
  • An Exhibit Denied: Lobbying the History of Enola Gay (1996 ) ISBN 978-0-387-94797-6

Honors

  • Bruce Medal ( 2007)
Space observatory Integrated Authority File
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