Fred Lawrence Whipple

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Fred Lawrence Whipple

Fred Lawrence Whipple 1906-2004, American astronomer, b. Red Oak, Iowa. After graduating from the Univ. of California, Berkeley (Ph.D. 1931), he accepted a position at Harvard, where he remained for the rest of his career. During World War II he helped develop the aluminum chaff that was used to confuse enemy radar, but he is best known for proposing in a 1950 paper that comets were frozen gases with other substances mixed in, not unlike a "dirty snowball." Whipple, who headed the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory from 1955 to 1973, also anticipated artificial satellites, establishing an early tracking station before the first Sputnik launch (1957).

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Whipple, Fred Lawrence

A Dictionary of Astronomy | 1997 | Â© A Dictionary of Astronomy 1997, originally published by Oxford University Press 1997. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

Whipple, FredLawrence (1906–2004)Americanastronomer. In the 1930s and 1940s he conducted photographic meteor patrols, and found that the Taurid meteor stream has the same orbit as Comet Encke. In 1949 he proposed an ‘icy conglomerate’ theory of comets (later dubbed the ‘dirty snowball’ model), according to which a comet's nucleus consists of frozen gases mixed with dust; this was borne out in 1986 when the Giotto space probe flew past the nucleus of Halley's Comet. Whipple discovered six comets, and studied planetary nebulae, flare stars, and stellar evolution.

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A Dictionary of Scientists | 1999 | Â© A Dictionary of Scientists 1999, originally published by Oxford University Press 1999. (Hide copyright information) Copyright

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	COMET MAN After all these years, Fred Whipple's still fascinated by dirty snowballs Newspaper article from: The Boston Globe; 10/28/1996; ; 700+ words ; ...astronomers in Texas a few years ago, Fred Lawrence Whipple suddenly tossed a loaf of bread...comet tumbles through space, Whipple explained with delight as a volunteer...approximately the same shape. Whipple, who has been called "Mr. Comet...
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