Norman F. Ness

Norman Frederick Ness ( born April 15, 1933, Springfield ( Massachusetts)) is an American geophysicist and astrophysicist, who is known for the study of extraterrestrial magnetic fields with space probes.

Ness received his bachelor's degree in 1955 from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he became in 1959 a Ph.D. in geophysics. Then he was at the University of California, Los Angeles, from 1960 as Assistant Professor.

Ness was from 1966 to 1986 director of the Laboratory of Extraterrestrial Physics at the Goddard Space Flight Center of NASA, where he conducted research since 1960 and pioneered the development of magnetometers for the study of interstellar and planetary magnetic fields ( as well as the solar wind ) made ​​with space probes. He directed such programs, for example, in the Mariner, Pioneer and Voyager probes. 1987 to 2000 he was Director of the Bartol Research Institute, which belonged from 2000 to the University of Delaware, where he was a professor since 1978. 1969/70 he was a visiting professor in Rome.

In 1993 he received the Emil Wiechert Medal and 1965 the John Adam Fleming Medal of the American Geophysical Union. In 1972 he was awarded the Space Science Award of the American Institute for Aeronautics and Astronautics and multiply the Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal of NASA (196, 1981, 1986 ). He is a member of the National Academy of Sciences and the Accademia dei Lincei.