- Viktor Safronov
Viktor Sergeevich Safronov (Russian:Виктор Сергеевич Сафронов) (born Velikie Luki, Russia, October 11, 1917 - died Moscow
September 18 1999 ) is a Sovietastronomer who was one of the first to put forward a consistent picture of how theplanet s formed from a disk of gas and dust around theSun .Biography and legacy
Safronov graduated from
MSU Department of Mechanics and Mathematics in 1941. He defended a dissertation for the Doctor of Physical and Mathematical Sciences in 1968. His scientific interests were planetarycosmogony ,astrophysics andgeophysics .His
planetesimal hypothesis of planet formation is still widely accepted among astronomers, although alternative theories exist (such as the gravitational fragmentation of theprotoplanetary disk directly into planets).A
minor planet 3615 Safronov , discovered by American astronomerEdward L. G. Bowell in 1983 is named after him. [cite book | last = Schmadel | first = Lutz D. | coauthors = | title = Dictionary of Minor Planet Names | pages = p. 304 | edition = 5th | year = 2003 | publisher = Springer Verlag | location = New York | url = http://books.google.com/books?q=3613+kunlun | id = ISBN 3540002383]Awards
*"
Otto Schmidt USSR Academy of Sciences Prize" (1974)
*"Kuiper Prize in Planetary Science" (1990)List of selected publications
*"Evolution of the Protoplanetary Cloud and Formation of the Earth and the Planets." Moscow: Nauka Press, 1969. Trans. NASA TTF 677, 1972.
References
External links
* [http://dps.aas.org/prizes/kuiper List of Gerard Kuiper award recipients] at the website of
American Astronomical Society
*ru icon [http://www.scgis.ru/russian/cp1251/h_dgggms/2-99/strakhov.htm A short biography]
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