Astronomer Whipple Dead At Age 97

cwaldrip writes "Reuters reports 'Fred Whipple, an astronomer who originated the idea that comets were comprised of ice and mineral dust, has died at the age of 97.' Comets being dirty ice is so accepted today, it's hard to think of alternatives other than solid rock. What alternate theories of cometary composition have there been?"

Comments

Wikipedia entry on Whipple

[Ianoo]

Some appropriate biographical text from Wikipedia:

Fred Lawrence Whipple (November 5, 1906 - August 30, 2004) was an American astronomer. He is best known for writing an influential paper in Astrophysical Journal in 1950 in which he proposed the now-confirmed "dirty snowball" theory of comet composition (although he originally used the term "icy conglomerate"). In 1933, he discovered the periodic comet 36P/Whipple and the asteroid 1252 Celestia. He also discovered or co-discovered five other non-periodic comets, the first of which was C/1932 P1 Peltier-Whipple, independently discovered by the famed amateur astronomer Leslie Peltier. During World War Two, he was credited with first proposing the use of chaff to confuse enemy radar. In 1955 he became director of the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory (SAO), remaining in this post until 1973. In 1983 he won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society. In 1986 he was awarded the Bruce Medal by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific, and in 1987 he was awarded the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship by the American Astronomical Society. Asteroid 1940 Whipple is named after him, as is the Whipple Observatory on Mount Hopkins in Arizona.

A fine scientist who made contributions to many areas of his field and will be remembered after most of us have long been forgotten. May he rest in peace.

Crackpots

[FlipmodePlaya]

As with all science, a few people have come up with crazy theories that differ from this. For instance, James McCanney. A debunking of his stuff can be found here.

Re:Was he the inventor of the Whipple Bumper as we

[Craig Milo Rogers]

Yup, same Whipple. He also co-invented anti-radar chaff (or, at least, the means of producing it) in World War II.

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/289/548 0/728