Michael E. Brown

Last updated

Michael E. Brown
Mike Brown Caltech 2021 01.jpg
Born (1965-06-05) June 5, 1965 (age 58)
Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.
NationalityAmerican
Education Princeton University
UC Berkeley
Known forDiscovery of Eris and other trans-Neptunian objects
How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming
Spouse
Diane Binney
​
(m. 2003)​
Children1
Scientific career
Fields Planetary astronomy
Doctoral students Chad Trujillo, Marc Kuchner, Megan Schwamb, Konstantin Batygin
Website mikebrown.caltech.edu

Michael E. Brown (born June 5, 1965) is an American astronomer, who has been professor of planetary astronomy at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) since 2003. [1] His team has discovered many trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs), including the dwarf planet Eris, which was originally thought to be bigger than Pluto, triggering a debate on the definition of a planet. [2]

Contents

He has been referred to by himself and by others as the man who "killed Pluto", [3] [4] [5] because he furthered Pluto's being downgraded to a dwarf planet in the aftermath of his discovery of Eris and several other probable trans-Neptunian dwarf planets. He is the author of How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming , published in 2010. He was awarded the Kavli Prize (shared with Jane Luu and David C. Jewitt) in 2012 "for discovering and characterizing the Kuiper Belt and its largest members, work that led to a major advance in the understanding of the history of our planetary system."

Early life and education

Brown was raised in Huntsville, Alabama, and graduated from Virgil I. Grissom High School in 1983. He earned his A.B. in physics from Princeton University in 1987, where he was a member of the Princeton Tower Club. Brown completed his senior thesis, titled "Simulating the measurement of the correlation function of the Shane–Wirtanen galaxy counts", under the supervision of Edward Groth. [6] He did his graduate studies at the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned an M.A. degree in astronomy in 1990 and a Ph.D. degree in astronomy in 1994. [1]

Career

Discoveries

Brown is credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery or co-discovery of 29 minor planets, not counting Haumea (see list below). [7] He is best known in the scientific community for his surveys for distant objects orbiting the Sun. His team has discovered many trans-Neptunian objects (TNOs). Particularly notable are Eris, a dwarf planet and the only TNO known to be more massive than Pluto, leading directly to Pluto's demotion from planet status; [2] [8] Sedna, a planetoid thought to be the first observed body of the inner Öpik–Oort cloud; and Orcus. Brown's team famously named Eris and its moon Dysnomia with the informal names Xena and Gabrielle, respectively, after the two main characters of Xena: Warrior Princess . Together with Jean-Luc Margot in 2001, he also discovered Romulus and Linus, two minor-planet moons in the asteroid belt.

List of minor-planet discoveries

Number and nameDiscovery dateDiscovery team
50000 Quaoar June 4, 2002 list [A]
65489 Ceto March 22, 2003 list [A]
(84719) 2002 VR128 November 3, 2002 list [A]
90377 Sedna November 14, 2003 list [A] [B]
90482 Orcus February 17, 2004 list [A] [B]
(119951) 2002 KX14 May 17, 2002 list [A]
(120178) 2003 OP32 July 26, 2003 list [A] [B]
120347 Salacia September 22, 2004 list [C] [F]
(120348) 2004 TY364 October 3, 2004 list [A] [B]
(126154) 2001 YH140 December 18, 2001 list [A]
(126155) 2001 YJ140 December 20, 2001 list [A] [D]
136108 Haumea December 28, 2004 list [A] [B]
136199 Eris October 21, 2003 list [A] [B]
136472 Makemake March 31, 2005 list [A] [B]
(175113) 2004 PF115 August 7, 2004 list [A] [B]
(187661) 2007 JG43May 10, 2007 list [E] [B]
(208996) 2003 AZ84 January 13, 2003 list [A]
225088 Gonggong July 17, 2007 list [E] [B]
229762 Gǃkúnǁʼhòmdímà July 17, 2007 list [E] [B]
(250112) 2002 KY14May 19, 2002 list [A]
(305543) 2008 QY40August 25, 2008 list [E] [B]
(307251) 2002 KW14May 17, 2002 list [A]
(307261) 2002 MS4 June 18, 2002 list [A]
(315530) 2008 AP129 January 11, 2008 list [E]
(386096) 2007 PR44August 7, 2007 list [E]
(504555) 2008 SO266September 24, 2008 list [E] [B]
(523597) 2002 QX47August 26, 2002 list [A]
(523618) 2007 RT15September 11, 2007 list [E] [B]
(523629) 2008 SP266September 26, 2008 list [E] [B]
(528381) 2008 ST291 September 24, 2008 list [E] [B]
Co-discovery made with:
A C. Trujillo  ·B D. L. Rabinowitz  ·C H. G. Roe
D Glenn Smith  ·E M. E. Schwamb F K. M. Barkume

Haumea controversy

Brown and his team also had been observing the dwarf planet Haumea for approximately six months before its announced discovery by José Luis Ortiz Moreno and colleagues from the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain. Brown originally indicated his support for Ortiz's team's being given credit for the discovery of Haumea. However, further investigation showed that a website containing archives of where the telescopes of Brown's team had been pointed while tracking Haumea had been accessed eight times in the three days preceding Ortiz's announcement, by computers with IP addresses that were traced back to the website of the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (CSIC, Institute of Astrophysics of Andalusia), where Ortiz works, and to e-mail messages sent by Ortiz and his student. These website accesses came a week after Brown had published an abstract for an upcoming conference talk at which he had planned to announce the discovery of Haumea; the abstract referred to Haumea by a code that was the same code used in the online telescope logs; and the Andalusia computers had accessed the logs containing that code directly, as would be the case after an internet search, without going through the home page or other pages of the archives. [9] When asked about this online activity, Ortiz responded with an email to Brown that suggested Brown was at fault for "hiding objects", and said that "the only reason why we are now exchanging e-mail is because you did not report your object." [10] Brown says that this statement by Ortiz contradicts the accepted scientific practice of analyzing one's research until one is satisfied that it is accurate, then submitting it to peer review prior to any public announcement. However, the Minor Planet Center only needs precise enough orbit determination on the object in order to provide discovery credit, which Ortiz provided (see Timeline of discovery of Solar System planets and their moons to verify typical time scale of observation and publication of discoveries).

The then director of the IAA, José Carlos del Toro, distanced himself from Ortiz, insisting that its researchers have "sole responsibility" for themselves. Brown petitioned the International Astronomical Union to credit his team rather than Ortiz as the discoverers of Haumea. The IAU has deliberately not acknowledged a discoverer of Haumea. The discovery date and location are listed as March 7, 2003, at Ortiz's Sierra Nevada Observatory. However, the IAU accepted Brown's suggested name of Haumea, which fit the names of Haumea's two moons, rather than Ortiz's Ataecina.

Proposed ninth planet

In January 2016, Brown and fellow Caltech astronomer, Konstantin Batygin, proposed the existence of Planet Nine, a major planet between the size of Earth and Neptune. [11] The two astronomers gave a recorded interview in which they described their method and reasoning for proposing Planet 9 on January 20, 2016. [12]

Other work

In 2010 Brown published a memoir of his discoveries and surrounding family life, How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming .

Honors, awards and accolades

Brown was named one of Time 's 100 most influential people of 2006. [13] In 2007 he received Caltech's annual Feynman Prize, Caltech's most prestigious teaching honor. Asteroid 11714 Mikebrown, discovered on April 28, 1998, was named in his honor. [14] In 2012, Brown was awarded the Kavli Prize in Astrophysics. [15]

Students and postdocs

Brown's former graduate students and postdocs include astrophysicists Adam Burgasser, Jean-Luc Margot, Chad Trujillo, Marc Kuchner, [16] Antonin Bouchez, Emily Schaller, [16] Darin Ragozzine, [16] and Megan Schwamb. [16] He also has created a course on Coursera.

Personal life

Brown married Diane Binney on March 1, 2003. [17] They have one daughter. [18]

See also

Related Research Articles

A trans-Neptunian object (TNO), also written transneptunian object, is any minor planet in the Solar System that orbits the Sun at a greater average distance than Neptune, which has an orbital semi-major axis of 30.1 astronomical units (au).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Minor-planet moon</span> Natural satellite of a minor planet

A minor-planet moon is an astronomical object that orbits a minor planet as its natural satellite. As of January 2022, there are 457 minor planets known or suspected to have moons. Discoveries of minor-planet moons are important because the determination of their orbits provides estimates on the mass and density of the primary, allowing insights into their physical properties that are generally not otherwise accessible.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">28978 Ixion</span> Plutino

28978 Ixion (, provisional designation 2001 KX76) is a large trans-Neptunian object and a possible dwarf planet. It is located in the Kuiper belt, a region of icy objects orbiting beyond Neptune in the outer Solar System. Ixion is classified as a plutino, a dynamical class of objects in a 2:3 orbital resonance with Neptune. It was discovered in May 2001 by astronomers of the Deep Ecliptic Survey at the Cerro Tololo Inter-American Observatory, and was announced in July 2001. The object is named after the Greek mythological figure Ixion, who was a king of the Lapiths.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">90482 Orcus</span> Trans-Neptunian planetoid

Orcus is a large trans-Neptunian object and likely dwarf planet located in the Kuiper belt, with one large moon, Vanth. It has an estimated diameter of 870 to 960 km, comparable to the Inner Solar System dwarf planet Ceres. Orcus had been accepted by many astronomers as a dwarf planet, though as of 2024 that classification remains somewhat controversial. The surface of Orcus is relatively bright with albedo reaching 23 percent, neutral in color, and rich in water ice. The ice is predominantly in crystalline form, which may be related to past cryovolcanic activity. Other compounds like methane or ammonia may also be present on its surface. Orcus was discovered by American astronomers Michael Brown, Chad Trujillo, and David Rabinowitz on 17 February 2004.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">90377 Sedna</span> Dwarf planet

Sedna is a dwarf planet in the outermost reaches of the inner Solar System, orbiting the Sun beyond the orbit of Neptune. Discovered in 2003, the planetoid's surface is one of the reddest known among Solar System bodies. Spectroscopy has revealed Sedna's surface to be mostly a mixture of the solid ices of water, methane, and nitrogen, along with widespread deposits of reddish-colored tholins, a chemical makeup similar to those of some other trans-Neptunian objects. Within the range of uncertainties, it is tied with the dwarf planet Ceres in the asteroid belt as the largest dwarf planet not known to have a moon. Its diameter is roughly 1,000 km. Owing to its lack of known moons, the Keplerian laws of planetary motion cannot be employed for determining its mass, and the precise figure as yet remains unknown.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chad Trujillo</span> American astronomer

Chadwick A. Trujillo is an American astronomer, discoverer of minor planets and the co-discoverer of Eris, the most massive dwarf planet known in the Solar System.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">David L. Rabinowitz</span> American astronomer

David Lincoln Rabinowitz is an American astronomer, discoverer of minor planets and researcher at Yale University.

The definition of the term planet has changed several times since the word was coined by the ancient Greeks. Greek astronomers employed the term ἀστέρες πλανῆται, 'wandering stars', for star-like objects which apparently moved over the sky. Over the millennia, the term has included a variety of different celestial bodies, from the Sun and the Moon to satellites and asteroids.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Haumea</span> Dwarf planet in the Solar System

Haumea is a dwarf planet located beyond Neptune's orbit. It was discovered in 2004 by a team headed by Mike Brown of Caltech at the Palomar Observatory in the United States and disputably also in 2005 by a team headed by José Luis Ortiz Moreno at the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Spain. On September 17, 2008, it was named after Haumea, the Hawaiian goddess of childbirth, under the expectation by the International Astronomical Union (IAU) that it would prove to be a dwarf planet. Nominal estimates make it the third-largest known trans-Neptunian object, after Eris and Pluto, and approximately the size of Uranus's moon Titania.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Makemake</span> Dwarf planet in the Outer Solar System

Makemake is a dwarf planet and the second-largest of what is known as the classical population of Kuiper belt objects, with a diameter approximately that of Saturn's moon Iapetus, or 60% that of Pluto. It has one known satellite. Its extremely low average temperature, about 40 K (−230 °C), means its surface is covered with methane, ethane, and possibly nitrogen ices. Makemake shows signs of geothermal activity and thus may be capable of supporting active geology and harboring an active subsurface ocean.

José Luis Ortiz Moreno is a Spanish astronomer, and former vice director of Technology at the Instituto de Astrofísica de Andalucía (IAA), Spain. He leads a team working on minor planets at the Sierra Nevada Observatory in Granada, Spain. The main-belt asteroid 4436 Ortizmoreno was named in his honor.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dwarf planet</span> Small planetary-mass object

A dwarf planet is a small planetary-mass object that is in direct orbit around the Sun, massive enough to be gravitationally rounded, but insufficient to achieve orbital dominance like the eight classical planets of the Solar System. The prototypical dwarf planet is Pluto, which for decades was regarded as a planet before the "dwarf" concept was adopted in 2006.

IAU definition of <i>planet</i> 2006 International Astronomical Union definition

The International Astronomical Union (IAU) defined in August 2006 that, in the Solar System, a planet is a celestial body that:

  1. is in orbit around the Sun,
  2. has sufficient mass to assume hydrostatic equilibrium, and
  3. has "cleared the neighbourhood" around its orbit.
<span class="mw-page-title-main">Eris (dwarf planet)</span> Dwarf planet beyond Pluto in the Solar System

Eris is the most massive and second-largest known dwarf planet in the Solar System. It is a trans-Neptunian object (TNO) in the scattered disk and has a high-eccentricity orbit. Eris was discovered in January 2005 by a Palomar Observatory–based team led by Mike Brown and verified later that year. In September 2006, it was named after the Greco–Roman goddess of strife and discord. Eris is the ninth-most massive known object orbiting the Sun and the sixteenth-most massive overall in the Solar System. It is also the largest known object in the solar system that has not been visited by a spacecraft. Eris has been measured at 2,326 ± 12 kilometers (1,445 ± 7 mi) in diameter; its mass is 0.28% that of the Earth and 27% greater than that of Pluto, although Pluto is slightly larger by volume. Both Eris and Pluto have a surface area that is comparable to the area of Russia or South America.

<span class="nowrap">(84922) 2003 VS<sub>2</sub></span> Trans-Neptunian object

(84922) 2003 VS2 is a trans-Neptunian object discovered by the Near Earth Asteroid Tracking program on 14 November 2003. Like Pluto, it is in a 2:3 orbital resonance with Neptune and is thus a plutino. Analysis of light-curve suggests that it is not a dwarf planet.

Haumea was the first of the IAU-recognized dwarf planets to be discovered since Pluto in 1930. Its naming as a dwarf planet was delayed by several years due to controversy over who should receive credit for its discovery. A California Institute of Technology (Caltech) team headed by Michael E. Brown first noticed the object, but a Spanish team headed by José Luis Ortiz Moreno were the first to announce it, and so normally would receive credit. Brown accused the Spanish team of fraud, using Caltech observations without credit to make their discovery, while the Ortiz team accused the American team of political interference with the International Astronomical Union (IAU). The IAU officially recognized the Californian team's proposed name Haumea over the name proposed by the Spanish team, Ataecina, in September 2008.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">225088 Gonggong</span> Dwarf planet in the scattered-disc

Gonggong is a dwarf planet and a member of the scattered disc beyond Neptune. It has a highly eccentric and inclined orbit during which it ranges from 34–101 astronomical units from the Sun. As of 2019, its distance from the Sun is 88 AU, and it is the sixth-farthest known Solar System object. According to the Deep Ecliptic Survey, Gonggong is in a 3:10 orbital resonance with Neptune, in which it completes three orbits around the Sun for every ten orbits completed by Neptune. Gonggong was discovered in July 2007 by American astronomers Megan Schwamb, Michael Brown, and David Rabinowitz at the Palomar Observatory, and the discovery was announced in January 2009.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">50000 Quaoar</span> Cold classical Kuiper belt object

Quaoar is a large, ringed trans-Neptunian object in the Kuiper belt, a region of icy planetesimals beyond Neptune. It has an elongated ellipsoid shape with an average diameter of 1,090 km (680 mi), about half the size of the dwarf planet Pluto. The object was discovered by American astronomers Chad Trujillo and Michael Brown at the Palomar Observatory on 4 June 2002. Quaoar's surface contains crystalline water ice and ammonia hydrate, which suggests that it might have experienced cryovolcanism. A small amount of methane is present on its surface, which can only be retained by the largest Kuiper belt objects.

References

  1. 1 2 Brown, Michael. "Curriculum vitae" . Retrieved August 25, 2006.
  2. 1 2 Brown, Michael E.; Schaller, Emily L. (June 15, 2007). "The Mass of Dwarf Planet Eris". Science. 316 (5831): 1585. Bibcode:2007Sci...316.1585B. doi:10.1126/science.1139415. PMID   17569855. S2CID   21468196.
  3. ↑ Brown, Mike (2010). How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming . ISBN   978-0-385-53108-5.
  4. ↑ Astronomer Who ‘Killed’ Pluto to Present Annual Science Lecture. Sarah Lawrence College – News and Events. April 13, 2009, retrieved January 11, 2011
  5. ↑ "Meet Mike Brown: Pluto killer and the man who brought us a genius idea of Ginger and planet9| Globalnews.ca". globalnews.ca. February 9, 2016. Retrieved January 2, 2019.
  6. ↑ Brown, Michael E. (1987). Simulating the measurement of the correlation function of the Shane-Wirtanen galaxy counts. Princeton, NJ: Department of Physics.
  7. ↑ "Minor Planet Discoverers (by number)". Minor Planet Center. May 24, 2019. Retrieved May 27, 2019.
  8. ↑ Kenneth Chang: The War of the Worlds, Round 2. The New York Times , January 10, 2011, retrieved January 11, 2011
  9. ↑ Brown, Michael. "The electronic trail" . Retrieved August 25, 2006.
  10. ↑ Overbye, Dennis (September 13, 2005). "One Find, Two Astronomers: An Ethical Brawl". The New York Times. Retrieved August 25, 2006.
  11. ↑ "Evidence of a Ninth Planet". Youtube.
  12. ↑ "Scientists Find Hints Of A Giant, Hidden Planet In Our Solar System". NPR.org. Retrieved January 22, 2016.
  13. ↑ Lemonick, Michael D. (April 30, 2006). "The 2006 TIME 100: Scientists & Thinkers: Mike Brown". Time . Archived from the original on September 3, 2010. Retrieved August 25, 2006.
  14. ↑ "11714 Mikebrown (1998 HQ51)" (online). JPL Small-Body Database Browser. Jet Propulsion Laboratory . Retrieved April 9, 2012.
  15. ↑ "2012 KAVLI PRIZE LAUREATES IN ASTROPHYSICS Awarded to Michael Edwards Brown, David C. Jewitt, Jane X. Luu". Kavli prize. May 31, 2012. Retrieved March 21, 2018.
  16. 1 2 3 4 Michael E. Brown. "Research". Caltech. Retrieved January 3, 2011.
  17. ↑ Brown, Michael. "Mike and Diane's Fabulous Wedding Web Page" . Retrieved August 25, 2006.
  18. ↑ Brown, Michael. "Lilah Binney Brown" . Retrieved August 25, 2006.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article
Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply.
Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.