| PICKERING, WILLIAM HENRY (1858
- 1938)
American astronomer, was born at Boston, February 15, 1858. He graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1879 and taught there from 1880 to 1887. In 1887 he became professor of astronomy at Harvard, and was interested in astrophotography. He found photographically that the entire constellation of Orion is immersed in nebulosity. In 1891 he and his brother,. Edward Charles Pickering, together established a southern Harvard station at Arequipa, Peru. He and Andrew E. Douglass proved the dark areas of Mars were not seas. In 1893 Dr. Percival Lowell commissioned him and Douglass to establish the Lowell Observatory at Flagstaff, Arizona. Pickering returned to Harvard and discovered Saturn's ninth satellite. He established another Harvard Station at Mandeville, Jamaica, and made extensive lunar surveys. His work, The Moon, was published in 1903. Later he announced changes observed on the moon. Pickering also did original research on meteors and novae. He made a major contribution on trans-Neptunian planets, reaching conclusions essentially similar to John Lowell's; and Pluto was later found nearer Pickering's predicted position. He also believed in other trans-Neptunian planets. Pickering was one of the world's leading observers, the planets being his main interest. Under his direction many reports on Mars were made, and he was a prolific writer of astronomical papers He died January 16, 1938. |