George Howard Herbig (January 2, 1920 – October 12, 2013) was an American astronomer at the University of Hawaiʻi Institute for Astronomy.[1] He is perhaps best known for his contribution to the discovery of Herbig–Haro objects.[2][3]
George Herbig | |
|---|---|
| Born | January 2, 1920 |
| Died | October 12, 2013 (aged 93) |
| Citizenship | United States |
| Alma mater | UCLA University of California, Berkeley (PhD) |
| Known for | Herbig–Haro objects Herbig Ae/Be stars |
| Awards | Helen B. Warner Prize (1955) Henry Norris Russell Lectureship (1975) Bruce Medal (1980) |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Star formation, interstellar medium |
| Institutions | University of Hawaiʻi |
Background
Born in 1920 in Wheeling, West Virginia,[4] Herbig received his Doctor of Philosophy in 1948 at the University of California, Berkeley; his dissertation is titled A Study of Variable Stars in Nebulosity.
Career
His specialty was stars at an early stage of evolution (a class of intermediate mass pre–main sequence stars are named Herbig Ae/Be stars after him) and the interstellar medium. He was perhaps best known for his discovery, with Guillermo Haro, of the Herbig–Haro objects; bright patches of nebulosity excited by bipolar outflow from a star being born.
Herbig also made prominent contributions to the field of diffuse interstellar band (DIB) research, especially through a series of nine articles published between 1963 and 1995 entitled "The diffuse interstellar bands."
Honors
Awards
- Helen B. Warner Prize for Astronomy of the American Astronomical Society (1955)[5]
- Foreign Scientific Member, Max-Planck-Institut für Astronomie, Heidelberg
- Henry Norris Russell Lectureship of the AAS (1975)[6]
- Médaille, Université de Liège (1969)
- Bruce Medal of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific (1980)[1]
- Petrie Prize and Lectureship of the Canadian Astronomical Society (1995)
Named after him
Selected publications
- "High-Resolution Spectroscopy of FU Orionis Stars", ApJ 595 (2003) 384–411 [8]
- "The Young Cluster IC 5146", AJ 123 (2002) 304–327 [9]
- "Barnard's Merope Nebula Revisited: New Observational Results", AJ 121 (2001) 3138–3148 [10]
- "The Diffuse Interstellar Bands", Annu. Rev. Astrophys. 33 (1995) 19–73
- "The Unusual Pre-Main-Sequence star VY Tauri", ApJ 360 (1990) 639–649
- "The Structure and Spectrum of R Monocerotis", ApJ 152 (1968) 439
- "The Spectra of Two Nebulous Objects Near NGC 1999", ApJ 113 (1951) 697
References
Further reading
- Reipurth, Bo. GEORGE HERBIG and Early Stellar Evolution. Institute for Astronomy, University of Hawaiʻi, Special Publications No. 1.