Adriaan van Maanen
Astronomer
1884 – 1946
Who was Adriaan van Maanen?
Adriaan van Maanen was a Dutch–American astronomer.
Van Maanen, born into a well-to-do family in Friesland, studied astronomy at the University of Utrecht and worked briefly at the University of Groningen. In 1911, he came to the United States to work as a volunteer in an unpaid capacity at Yerkes Observatory. Within a year he got a position at the Mount Wilson Observatory, where he remained active until his death in 1946.
He discovered Van Maanen's star.
He is well known for his astrometric measurements of internal motions in spiral nebulae. Believing that nebulae were local, stellar and gaseous systems that existed in our galaxy, his measurements came to be at odds with Edwin Hubble's discovery that the Andromeda Nebula and other spiral nebulae were extragalactic objects. The speed at which he calculated the nebulae to rotate would, if Hubble were correct as to their extragalactic nature, have had their Cepheid stars moving at speeds faster than that of light. In 1935, it was decided that since Hubble's calculations of extragalactic Cepheid distances were correct, ergo van Maanen's astrometric measurements had to be incorrect.
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- Born
- Mar 31, 1884
Sneek - Also known as
- Маанен, Адриан ван
- Nationality
- United States of America
- Netherlands
- Profession
- Education
- Utrecht University
- Employment
- University of Groningen
- Lived in
- Friesland
- Died
- Jan 26, 1946
Pasadena
Submitted
on July 23, 2013
Citation
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