Brian G. Marsden

Brian G. Marsden

Brian Geoffrey Marsden (5 August 1937 – 18 November 2010) was a British astronomer. He worked at the Minor Planet Center at the Center for Astrophysics | Harvard & Smithsonian. This group collects and shares information about asteroids, comets, and other small objects in space.

Marsden was famous for figuring out the paths of these space objects. His work helped scientists know where these objects were and where they might go in the future. He helped predict when comets would appear again from Earth and where new asteroids might travel.

In addition to his research, Marsden kept important records of discoveries in astronomy. He made sure these findings were shared with astronomers all over the world. He stayed on as director emeritus of the Minor Planet Center from 2006 until he died in 2010.

Education

Brian G. Marsden studied at The Perse School in Cambridge. He then went to New College, Oxford and got his Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees. He finished his PhD at Yale University with Dirk Brouwer as his advisor.

Life

Brian Marsden studied celestial mechanics and astrometry. He gathered information about where asteroids and comets are and figured out their paths around the Sun. He shared this information with the International Astronomical Union (IAU).

He was the director of the Minor Planet Center since 1978 and also led the Central Bureau for Astronomical Telegrams (CBAT) from 1968 to 1999.

Marsden helped find lost asteroids and lost comets again. He correctly guessed when the Comet Swift-Tuttle would return in 1992. In 1993, he said that Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9 would hit Jupiter in 1994, which was the first time anyone predicted a comet would hit a planet. He suggested that Pluto could be called both a planet and a minor planet, but this idea was not used. Later, Pluto was called a dwarf planet.

Family

Brian Marsden married Nancy Lou Zissell, and they had two children, a daughter named Cynthia and a son named Jonathan. He named a minor planet, 2298 Cindijon, after them. Marsden often said his mother inspired his love for astronomy. She showed him a partial solar eclipse of September 10, 1942, and he was amazed that scientists could predict when it would happen.

Honours

Brian G. Marsden received many awards for his work in astronomy. He was given the Merlin Medal from the British Astronomical Association in 1965, the Walter Goodacre Medal in 1979, and the George Van Biesbroeck Prize from the American Astronomical Society in 1989. He also received the Brouwer Award from the Division on Dynamical Astronomy of the American Astronomical Society in 1995 and an award from the Royal Astronomical Society in 2006.

Two space objects were named after him: Asteroid 1877 Marsden and the Marsden Group of sun-grazing comets. He was also a member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters.