Tag: Obituary

Walter F. Huebner, world-renowned astrophysicist and planetary scientist (specializing in comets), passed away peacefully at his home in Norman, Oklahoma, on June 1, 2021. Walter worked as a scientist at the Los Alamos National Laboratory and later at the Southwest Research Institute, and he also held many professional leadership and service positions, such as President of IAU Commission 15 (Small Bodies of the Solar System), President of the Permanent Monitoring Panel for Cosmic Objects (at international seminars on Nuclear War and Planetary Emergencies), a Program Manager at NASA Headquarters, and a visiting scientist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the University of Sao Paulo, and the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysicist. He was awarded a Fulbright Fellowship and was a participant in Operation Dominic at Christmas Island. Walter was known not only for his invaluable scientific work and insights, but also for his kind, gentle, and generous nature. He had a wonderful sense of humor, a lifelong passion for travel, and was loved by all who knew him.

Adapted from Boice, D. 2021, DPS, 102.01 presentation.

17 Oct 2021

Dr. Gordon Pettengill died on May 8, 2021 at his home in Concord, Massachusetts at the age of 95. Dr. Pettengill was one of the very early pioneers in the use of radar to explore solar system bodies while working at the Millstone Hill facility of Lincoln Laboratories. Having assisted Bill Gordon during the construction of the Arecibo telescope via many trips to Arecibo in the early 1960s, Dr. Pettengill joined the staff of the observatory as Associate Director in 1963.  Between then and when he resigned in late 1965, he worked with Rolf Dyce, Tommy Thompson, Andy Sanchez (U. of Puerto Rico) and, after January,1965, myself on observations of the Moon, Mercury, Venus and Mars. He returned in late 1968 to be the observatory’s director, a position he held until December 1970 when he took up a position as Professor of Earth, Atmospheric and Planetary Sciences at MIT. Dr. Pettengill continued his involvement with the radar program at Arecibo, especially observations in the 1970s of the Galilean Satellites and Rings of Saturn working with Steve Ostro, who was a graduate student at MIT, and myself. Gordon was the PI on the radar altimeter instrument on the 1978 Pioneer Venus mission to Venus and he was also the PI on the later Magellan mission to that planet.

From Don Campbell, more at Arecibo Observatory website: http://www.naic.edu/ao/blog/memoriam-dr-gordon-pettengill)

3 Oct 2021

Terrence Rettig, retired professor of astrophysics in the Department of Physics at the University of Notre Dame, died Aug 22, 2021. In addition to teaching, Rettig served as a program director with the National Science Foundation and helped to establish the NSF Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Program at Notre Dame — the longest-running REU program for physics in the country. “I view him as the founder of astronomy at Notre Dame,” said Peter Garnavich, professor of physics and chair of the Department of Physics. “Terry started as a teaching professor and his work was so impressive he was put on the tenure track. That shows how excellent he was at both teaching and research.” Rettig was instrumental in coordinating Notre Dame’s partnership with the Large Binocular Telescope Observatory. His research primarily focused on understanding the collapse of proto-planetary disks and the conditions and constraints under which planets form. Rettig’s work to understand comets and planet formation gained unique recognition in 2000 when the International Astronomical Union named an asteroid after Rettig.

More found at this website: https://news.nd.edu/news/in-memoriam-terrence-rettig-retired-professor-of-astrophysics/

3 Oct 2021

American astronomer and co-discoverer of Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, Carolyn Shoemaker, passed away on August 13, 2021, at the age of 92.

‘Carolyn was quite extraordinary,’ noted Lisa Gaddis, Director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute. ‘Although her scientific career began after she and her husband Gene raised their family, she became one of the world’s foremost discoverers of comets and asteroids. She was smart, witty, and just so practical; she was an example to younger women and budding scientists everywhere as someone who made a difference in her own way.’

She discovered 32 comets and more than 500 asteroids. She was a research professor at Northern Arizona University, and the recipient of the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal, the National Academies of Science Watson Medal, and the Rittenhouse Medal. Minor Planet 4445 Carolyn is named in her honor.

From: Mary Chapman and Lisa Gaddis via usdaynews.com and Mark Sykes via Planetary Exploration Newsletter.

https://www.lpi.usra.edu/planetary_news/2021/08/17/in-memoriam-carolyn-shoemaker-1929-2021/

https://astrogeology.usgs.gov/people/carolyn-shoemaker

https://bit.ly/azdailysun_carolyn_shoemaker

23 Aug 2021

Jack graduated from Amherst College near the top of his class (Phi Beta Kappa) where he met and married his first wife, Lynne (Trowbridge). They had two sons, John in 1960 and Matt in 1965. Following completion of his PhD and a stint in the US Air Force, he began work with the Air Force Civilian Research Laboratory at Hanscom AFB. There he was part of a small team that helped divine the surface characteristics of the moon by developing new near and mid-infrared remote sensing technologies. This work was integral in the design of the lunar lander for the Apollo 11 mission. He appeared alongside Walter Cronkite on television during the coverage of the lunar landing in 1969 to help explain things.

In 1975, Jack started work with the Energy Research and Development Administration and subsequently the US Department of Energy. After many years there, he went on to teach geologic remote sensing at Johns Hopkins University. He retired and moved to Palm Coast, Florida in 1997 with his wife Lynne, who passed away in 2008. His passion for science kept him consulting in remote sensing and spectral interpretation until earlier this year, when at the age of 87 he decided to retire completely.

A longer tribute is provided here:

https://www.clymerfuneralhome.com/obituary/john-jack-salisbury

Dr. George Carruthers was an accomplished astrophysicist and engineer, with many contributions to astrophysics and planetary science, and one of only a few African Americans working in the early U.S. space program. He was the principal designer of an ultraviolet camera/spectrograph that went to the moon as part of NASA’s Apollo 16 mission in 1972, in an effort to examine Earth’s atmosphere and the composition of interstellar space, for which he was awarded NASA’s Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal. He continued his instrument development and science research at the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory through 2002, when he became a professor at Howard University. His accomplishments included development of an instrument with two far-UV cameras used on the STS-39 space shuttle mission, in 1991, and the first detection of molecular hydrogen in space, via a sounding rocket in 1970. Dr. Carruthers earned many awards for his work, including a National Medal of Technology and Innovation awarded by President Obama. Dr. Carruthers will be remembered as an amazing scientist, engineer, professor and mentor. In particular, he was highly engaged with the National Society of Black Physicists (NSBP). He passed on December 26, 2020, at the age of 81.

Notice of Dr. Carruther’s passing from NSBP: https://nsbp.org/news/545345/Dr.-George-Carruthers-Passed-Away.htm
Notice of Dr. Carruther’s passing from NASA: https://www.nasa.gov/image-feature/looking-back-dr-george-carruthers-and-apollo-16-far-ultraviolet-cameraspectrograph

Roger Jay Phillips, American geophysicist, planetary scientist and professor emeritus at the Washington University in St. Louis, passed away on November 19, 2020. Phillips served as the Director of the Lunar and Planetary Institute (LPI) from 1979 to 1982.

Phillips received his Ph.D. in 1968 from the University of California, Berkeley. Following graduate school he worked at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL), before joining the staff of the LPI in 1979. In 1982, Phillips accepted a faculty position at Southern Methodist University, and in 1992 he moved to Washington University in St. Louis, where he served as a Professor and as Director of the McDonnell Center for the Space Sciences. After retiring from Washington University, Phillips moved to Colorado, where he was affiliated with the Southwest Research Institute.

Over a career that spanned more than five decades, Phillips contributed broadly to our understanding of the geophysical structure and evolution of the Moon, Mars, Venus, and Mercury. He was the team leader for the Apollo Lunar Sounder Experiment, which flew on Apollo 17 and produced the first radar imaging of the lunar subsurface. Much later, he was team co-leader for the Shallow Radar (SHARAD) experiment on the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter that imaged the internal stratigraphy of martian polar layered deposits. He also played key roles on the science teams for the Magellan mission to Venus, the Mars Global Surveyor mission, the MESSENGER mission to orbit Mercury, and the GRAIL mission to the Moon.

Phillips is well known for his contributions to understanding the impact crater distribution and resurfacing history of Venus, as well as the geodynamical evolution of that planet’s mantle and crust. He demonstrated that growth of the huge Tharsis volcanic province on Mars shaped the entire planet and influenced the distribution and direction of martian valley networks. From radar sounding and laser altimetry, he showed that the lithosphere of the martian polar regions is minimally deflected by the substantial load of the polar deposits, a condition indicative of a large lithosphere thickness or a long-term transient mantle response to loading.

A fellow of the American Geophysical Union, Phillips received the 2003 G. K. Gilbert Award from the Geological Society of America. He was also honored with the Whipple Award from the American Geophysical Union in 2008. Among his many contributions to the scientific literature, Phillips served as an editor of Geophysical Research Letters and co-edited the books: Basaltic Volcanism on the Terrestrial Planets, Origin of the Moon, and Venus II.

One of the giants of planetary science, H. J. Melosh, died unexpectedly on 11 September 2020 at age 73. Through his students, postdocs and collaborators, he brought a high level of physical rigour to the growing field of planetary geology.

Jay Melosh was in many ways a maverick. Born Henry J. Melosh IV in New Jersey, Jay would have none of it, and was always simply ‘Jay’ to everyone. He did follow family tradition in being a ‘Princeton man’, but majored in physics (graduating in 1969), which led to a PhD under Murray Gell-Mann at Caltech only three years later. His 1974 thesis publication on the relation between current and constituent quarks1 is still cited in terms of the ‘Melosh transformation’. But his next publication, in 1975, concerned mass concentrations (mascons) and the orientation of the Moon2, for Jay’s true passion turned out to be geology, and planetary geology in particular. He was immersed in the planetary science discipline that was emerging at Caltech, and returned there after postdoctoral stints at CERN (the European Centre for Particle Physics) and the University of Chicago, rising to the rank of associate professor. After three years on the faculty at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, in 1982 Jay settled in for a long and productive middle career at the University of Arizona where he held joint appointments in the Planetary Sciences and Geosciences departments, becoming an Arizona Regents Professor in 2004.

For full obituary, please go to: H.J. Melosh

York University Professor Emeritus John Caldwell died on Dec. 12, 2019 at the age of 75 after a lengthy illness. Caldwell was a professor of astronomy, with expertise in space and planetary astronomy and extra-solar planets, in the Faculty of Science.

Caldwell came to York in 1986 after serving in the Royal Canadian Navy, and earning a PhD in astronomy from the University of Madison (Wisconsin). During his career, he also taught at Princeton University and State University of NY at Stony Brook.

He was well known for his extensive collaborations with NASA’s Ames Research Centre, where he worked with a team of scientists to develop the Kepler mission to discover Earth-like planets around other stars. He also made observations of Mars with the Hubble Space Telescope and focussed efforts on searching for possible volcanic emissions with his students and collaborators.

He is also remembered for his passion for softball, and playing on campus during the summer months with grad students.

John achieved great professional success and was highly respected in his field. Raising his three children, as he would say, was his greatest accomplishment and spending time with his children and grandchildren was his favourite thing to do.

He leaves behind his daughter, Devon (Neil), and his sons, David (Lisa) and Garrett (Candice). He was the adored “Du” of nine grandchildren: Tim (Salina), Bryanna, Madison, Abigail, Sophia, Riley, James, Reagen and Emma. He will be missed by his twin sister, Joan, and her family.

Adapted from the full obituary at: https://yfile.news.yorku.ca/2019/12/18/passings-professor-emeritus-john-caldwell/