Kenneth Edgeworth

Who was Kenneth Edgeworth?

Kenneth Essex Edgeworth, DSO, MC was an Irish astronomer, economist and engineer. He is best known for proposing the existence of a disc of icy bodies beyond the orbit of Neptune in the 1940s in much the same manner as Gerard Kuiper would publish ten years later. Observations later confirmed the existence of what has become known, somewhat controversially, as the Kuiper belt.

Edgeworth was born in Streete, County Westmeath, where his uncle built an observatory. After winning a scholarship to study in Britain, he would go on to a military career as an officer with the Royal Engineers, earning decorations during World War I. He is also one of the last winners of the Pollock Medal. He returned to Ireland in the 1930s, and became both a published international economist and planetary astronomer.

The asteroid 3487 Edgeworth is named in his honour.