Wilbur Norman Christiansen

Who was Wilbur Norman Christiansen?

Wilbur Norman "Chris" Christiansen was a pioneer Australian radio astronomer and electrical engineer.

Christiansen built the first grating array for scanning the sun at the radio astronomy field station at Potts Hill, New South Wales. A later array at Badgerys Creek, New South Wales, the Chris Cross Telescope, was named after Christiansen. For many years, he was chairman of the electrical engineering department at the University of Sydney.

His father was a clergyman and his mother a music teacher. He was colloquially known as "Chris". Christiansen died on 26 April 2007 in Dorrigo, New South Wales, near his son Tim and his brother Steven. His wife Elspeth died in 2001 and their son Peter, also a space physicist, died in 1992.