Last updated Samuel Pierpont Langley, who was the first recipient of the medal in 1886 "for numerous investigations of a high order of merit in solar physics, and especially in the domain of radiant energy"
The Henry Draper Medal is awarded every 4 years by the United States National Academy of Sciences "for investigations in astronomical physics".[2][3] Named after Henry Draper, the medal is awarded with a gift of USD $15,000.[4] The medal was established under the Draper Fund by his widow, Anna Draper, in honor of her husband,[5] and was first awarded in 1886 to Samuel Pierpont Langley "for numerous investigations of a high order of merit in solar physics, and especially in the domain of radiant energy".[1] It has since been awarded 45 times.
The medal has been awarded to multiple individuals in the same year: in 1977 it was awarded to Arno Allan Penzias and Robert Woodrow Wilson "for their discovery of the cosmic microwave radiation (a remnant of the very early universe), and their leading role in the discovery of interstellar molecules";[6][7] in 1989 to Riccardo Giovanelli and Martha P. Haynes "for the first three-dimensional view of some of the remarkable large-scale filamentary structures of our visible universe";[2] in 1993 to Ralph Asher Alpher and Robert Herman "for their insight and skill in developing a physical model of the evolution of the universe and in predicting the existence of a microwave background radiation years before this radiation was serendipitously discovered"[8] and in 2001 to R. Paul Butler and Geoffrey Marcy "for their pioneering investigations of planets orbiting other stars via high-precision radial velocities".[9]
"For his observations and researches relating to the motions of stars in the line of sight, his improvements in the methods of measuring such motions, his discussions of conclusions to be drawn from them, and the organization of work in this field in the southern hemisphere"
"For his researches on the infra-red region of the solar spectrum and his accurate measurements, by improved devices, of the solar 'constant' of radiation"
"For his researches in celestial and laboratory spectroscopy, which have led to a valuable increase of our knowledge of sun spots, comets, and the stars—especially of red stars of Secchi's Type III"
"For his contribution to knowledge of physical conditions existing within the stars, and for his constructive interpretation of the Einstein theory of the relativity as applied to astronomical problems"
"For his fruitful investigations in photographic process which have given emulsions sensitive to red and infrared of the spectrum and made possible great advance in knowledge of this highly important region of the radiant energy of stars"
"In recognition of his contributions to astronomical physics; more especially his researches on the spectra and chemical composition of gaseous nebulae"
"In recognition of his contributions to astronomical physics; more especially his pioneer work upon resonance spectra, his use of color filters in astronomical photography, and his development of methods for concentrating to a high degree the light from diffraction gratings in desired orders and regions of the spectrum"
"For his contributions to solar physics. The coronograph, invented by Lyot, has made possible continuous observation of the inner corona on all clear days at any suitable location"
"For his book Structure and Evolution of the Stars and two papers, "On the Maximum Mass of Stable Stars" and "Evolution of very Massive Stars," which are outstanding contributions in the field of stellar evolution"
"For the development of a novel radio-telescopic equipment which made it possible to determine accurately positions of the numerous weak radio sources in the sky"
"In recognition of his fruitful researches in astronomical physics, and particularly for his part in the discovery and proof of extremely high temperatures in the sun's corona"
"For his vision and distinguished achievements in space astronomy and for his many outstanding contributions to the physics of the plasmas on earth and in the interstellar medium"
"For their discovery of the cosmic microwave radiation (a remnant of the very early universe), and their leading role in the discovery of interstellar molecules"
"For his pioneering researches in spectral classification, leading to a new standard of accuracy in our knowledge of the distances of the stars and the structure of our galaxy"
"For his pioneering studies of pulsars, including the fundamental measurements of orbit perturbations by gravitational radiation and other general relativistic effects"
"For their insight and skill in developing a physical model of the evolution of the universe and in predicting the existence of a microwave background radiation years before this radiation was serendipitously discovered; through this work they were participants in one of the major intellectual achievements of the twentieth century"
"For his epochal contributions toward understanding gamma-ray bursts, the evolution of binary stars, and especially the gravitational lensing and microlensing of light from distant objects"
"For their pioneering investigations of planets orbiting other stars via high-precision radial velocities. They have proved that many other planetary systems exist in the universe"
"For his contribution to the precise determination of the age, composition, and curvature of the universe through his leadership of NASA's WMAP [Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe] cosmic microwave background mission"
"For his pioneering contributions to gamma ray astronomy. His leadership of the Compton Gamma Ray Observatory and the Swift Mission has led to new insights into the extreme physics of active galactic nuclei and gamma ray bursts"
"For his founding concept, unflagging advocacy, and visionary leadership during the development of NASA's Kepler mission, which has uncovered myriad planets and solar systems with unforeseen and surprising properties."
"Honoring Barish and Whitcomb, on behalf of the LIGO collaboration, for their visionary and pivotal leadership roles, scientific guidance, and novel instrument design during the development of LIGO that were crucial for LIGO's discovery of gravitational waves from colliding black holes, thus directly validating Einstein's 100-year-old prediction of gravitational waves and ushering a new field of gravitational wave astronomy."
"for their vision and their leadership within the EHT collaboration, embracing theory, instrumentation, observation and analysis in combining radio telescopes around the world to image the shadow of the supermassive black hole in the nearby galaxy M87, thereby validating Einstein’s general theory of relativity."
Spacelab was a reusable laboratory developed by European Space Agency (ESA) and used on certain spaceflights flown by the Space Shuttle. The laboratory comprised multiple components, including a pressurized module, an unpressurized carrier, and other related hardware housed in the Shuttle's cargo bay. The components were arranged in various configurations to meet the needs of each spaceflight.
The Mauna Kea Observatories (MKO) are a group of independent astronomical research facilities and large telescope observatories that are located at the summit of Mauna Kea on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi, United States. The facilities are located in a 525-acre (212 ha) special land use zone known as the "Astronomy Precinct", which is located within the 11,228-acre (4,544 ha) Mauna Kea Science Reserve. The Astronomy Precinct was established in 1967 and is located on land protected by the Historical Preservation Act for its significance to Hawaiian culture. The presence and continued construction of telescopes is highly controversial due to Mauna Kea's centrality in native Hawaiian religion and culture, as well as for a variety of environmental reasons.
Edward Charles Pickering was an American astronomer and physicist and the older brother of William Henry Pickering. Along with Carl Vogel, Pickering discovered the first spectroscopic binary stars. He wrote Elements of Physical Manipulations.
Henry Draper was an American medical doctor and amateur astronomer. He is best known today as a pioneer of astrophotography.
Catherine Wolfe Bruce was a noted American philanthropist and patron of astronomy.
Fritz Zwicky was a Swiss astronomer. He worked most of his life at the California Institute of Technology in the United States of America, where he made many important contributions in theoretical and observational astronomy. In 1933, Zwicky was the first to use the virial theorem to postulate the existence of unseen dark matter, describing it as "dunkle Materie".
The Holmdel Horn Antenna is a large microwave horn antenna that was used as a satellite communication antenna and radio telescope during the 1960s at the Bell Telephone Laboratories facility located on Crawford Hill in Holmdel Township, New Jersey, United States. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1989 because of its association with the research work of two radio astronomers, Arno Penzias and Robert Wilson.
The discovery of cosmic microwave background radiation constitutes a major development in modern physical cosmology. In 1964, US physicist Arno Allan Penzias and radio-astronomer Robert Woodrow Wilson discovered the cosmic microwave background (CMB), estimating its temperature as 3.5 K, as they experimented with the Holmdel Horn Antenna. The new measurements were accepted as important evidence for a hot early Universe and as evidence against the rival steady state theory as theoretical work around 1950 showed the need for a CMB for consistency with the simplest relativistic universe models. In 1978, Penzias and Wilson were awarded the Nobel Prize for Physics for their joint measurement. There had been a prior measurement of the cosmic background radiation (CMB) by Andrew McKellar in 1941 at an effective temperature of 2.3 K using CN stellar absorption lines observed by W. S. Adams. Although no reference to the CMB is made by McKellar, it was not until much later after the Penzias and Wilson measurements that the significance of this measurement was understood.
Observational cosmology is the study of the structure, the evolution and the origin of the universe through observation, using instruments such as telescopes and cosmic ray detectors.
Antonia Caetana de Paiva Pereira Maury was an American astronomer who was the first to detect and calculate the orbit of a spectroscopic binary. She published an important early catalog of stellar spectra using her own system of stellar classification, which was later adopted by the International Astronomical Union. She also spent many years studying the binary star Beta Lyrae. Maury was part of the Harvard Computers, a group of female astronomers and human computers at the Harvard College Observatory.
Leiden Observatory is an astronomical institute of Leiden University, in the Netherlands. Established in 1633 to house the quadrant of Willebrord Snellius, it is the oldest operating university observatory in the world, with the only older still existing observatory being the Vatican Observatory.
Robert Paul Butler is an astronomer and staff scientist at the Carnegie Institution for Science in Washington, D.C., who searches for extrasolar planets.
Lewis Boss was an American astronomer. He served as the director of the Dudley Observatory in Schenectady, New York.
Adam Guy Riess is an American astrophysicist and Bloomberg Distinguished Professor at Johns Hopkins University and the Space Telescope Science Institute. He is known for his research in using supernovae as cosmological probes. Riess shared both the 2006 Shaw Prize in Astronomy and the 2011 Nobel Prize in Physics with Saul Perlmutter and Brian P. Schmidt for providing evidence that the expansion of the universe is accelerating.
TAU was a proposed uncrewed interstellar probe that would go to a distance of one thousand astronomical units from the Earth and Sun by the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1987 using tested technology. One scientific purpose would be to measure the distance to other stars via stellar parallax. Studies continued into 1990, working with a launch in the 2005–2010 timeframe.
Heidi B. Hammel is an American planetary astronomer who has extensively studied Neptune and Uranus. She was part of the team imaging Neptune from Voyager 2 in 1989. She led the team using the Hubble Space Telescope to view Shoemaker-Levy 9's impact with Jupiter in 1994. She has used the Hubble Space Telescope and the Keck Telescope to study Uranus and Neptune, discovering new information about dark spots, planetary storms and Uranus' rings. In 2002, she was selected as an interdisciplinary scientist for the James Webb Space Telescope.
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This is a list of encyclopedias and encyclopedic/biographical dictionaries published on the subject of astronomy and astronomers in any language. Entries are in the English language except where noted.
Mary Anna Draper, also known as Mary Anna Palmer Draper, was an American, known for her work with her husband, Henry Draper, with astronomical photography and research. She helped found the Mount Wilson Observatory and created an award for astronomical research, the Henry Draper Medal of the National Academy of Sciences.
1 2 3 A History of the Half-Century of the National Academy of Sciences 1863-1913. Committee on the Preparation of the Semi-Centennial Volume. 1913. p.346.
↑ Lanzerotti, Louis J.; National Research Council (U.S.). Committee on the Assessment of Options for Extending the Life of the Hubble Space Telescope (2005). Assessment of options for extending the life of the Hubble Space Telescope: final report. National Academies Press. p.142. ISBN978-0-309-09530-3.
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