Adriaan van Maanen

Astronomer

1884 – 1946

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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

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