Vesto Slipher
Melvin Slipher Vesto (* November 11, 1875 in Mulberry, Indiana, † November 8, 1969 in Flagstaff, Arizona ) was an American astronomer. He is considered a pioneer of modern planetology, cosmology and astro spectroscopy and as the discoverer of galaxies escape.
Slipher studied at Indiana University, Mechanics and Astronomy; In 1901 he graduated as a Bachelor, Master 1903 and 1909 to the doctor. The majority of his working life was spent at the Lowell Observatory in Flagstaff ( Arizona), whose director he was after the death of the founder Percival Lowell from 1916 to 1952.
He examined spectroscopically the rotation periods of planets and the composition of planetary atmospheres. Around 1910, he observed in the atmosphere of Mars spectroscopy traces of oxygen and water vapor (which we assume today with 0.13 and 0.02 %). What other scientists doubted, however, the discussion of Martian channels and low extraterrestrial life suggested new. 1929 Slipher discovered the sodium layer in the upper atmosphere and in 1933 he found methane in the atmosphere of the outermost planet Neptune.
When it 's First 1912-1915 managed the difficult measurement of the radial velocity of a spiral nebula and to 1915 of 14 other galaxies. Later he discovered their rotation. The fact that these strange spiral nebulae do not belong to our Milky Way, but distant " island universes " are, was not detectable. In analyzing their velocities he discovered the general redshift of galaxies, of which only make some spiral nebulae near an exception. These galaxies escape correlated later Edwin Hubble with distance, which resulted on the Hubble constant to the theory of the expansion of the universe.
1962 was Slipher out a standard work on the photography of Mars and 1964 all major planets, what the Flagstaff Observatory was predestined by decades of work.
Slipher in 1932 was awarded the Henry Draper Medal, in 1933 with the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1935 and the Bruce Medal. Two craters on Mars and the Moon are named after him.