Michael E. Brown
Astronomer whose discoveries led to Pluto's reclassification as a dwarf planet.
His team's discovery of Eris, a trans-Neptunian object more massive than Pluto, directly led to Pluto's reclassification as a dwarf planet.[1][2]
Quick Facts
- Born
- 5 June 1965
- Birthplace
- Huntsville, Alabama, U.S.
- Fields
- Planetary astronomy
- Education
- Princeton University (AB), UC Berkeley (MA, PhD)
- Doctoral students
- Chad Trujillo
- Marc Kuchner
- Megan Schwamb
- Konstantin Batygin
- Known for
- Discovery of Eris and other trans-Neptunian objects; How I Killed Pluto and Why It Had It Coming
- Spouse
- Diane Binney, 1 March 2003
- Children
- 1
Facts from the source article.
Key facts and history
Brown was raised in Huntsville, Alabama, and graduated from Virgil I. Grissom High School in 1983.[3] Brown completed his senior thesis under Edward J. Groth and earned an M.A. in astronomy in 1990 and a Ph.D. in astronomy in 1994 from the University of California, Berkeley.[3] In 2003, Brown discovered Eris, a body beyond the orbit of Pluto.[4] For about half a year prior to the announcement of Haumea's discovery by José Luis Ortiz Moreno and his colleagues at the Sierra Nevada Observatory, Brown and his team had been monitoring that dwarf planet.[5]
Brown initially expressed that the team led by Ortiz should receive recognition for finding Haumea.[5] In January 2016, Konstantin Batygin, an astronomer at Caltech, and Brown put forward the hypothesis of Planet Nine, a large planet with a size falling between that of Earth and Neptune.[6] On March 1, 2003, Brown wed Diane Binney; the couple has one daughter.[7]
What the cited sources add
A 2016 interview notes that Brown has had to live with being called a murderer.[4] In that interview, Brown asserted that Kuiper Belt Objects are far more interesting than people give them credit for.[4] Brown also tweeted that if Neptune were ten times further away, it would be invisible to the WISE survey.[4] In a 2016 post on his @plutokiller account, Brown stated that the possible planet's hiding spot was being progressively narrowed down.[4]
References
- Wikipedia, "Michael E. Brown" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Brown, "Curriculum vitae"; Brown, "The Mass of Dwarf Planet Eris", Science, June 15, 2007, p. 1585 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Michael E. Brown" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Brown, "The Mass of Dwarf Planet Eris", Science, June 15, 2007, p. 1585; Kenneth Chang: The War of the Worlds, Round 2. The New York Times, January 10, 2011, retrieved January 11, 2011 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Michael E. Brown" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Brown, "Simulating the measurement of the correlation function of the Shane-Wirtanen galaxy counts", Princeton, NJ: Department of Physics, 1987; Brown, "Curriculum vitae" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- "Meet Mike Brown: Pluto killer and the man who brought us Planet 9 Globalnews.ca", globalnews.ca, February 9, 2016. facts only, no text reused. globalnews.ca
- Wikipedia, "Michael E. Brown" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Brown, "The electronic trail"; Overbye, "One Find, Two Astronomers: An Ethical Brawl", The New York Times, September 13, 2005 (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Michael E. Brown" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: "Evidence of a Ninth Planet", Youtube, January 20, 2016; "Scientists Find Hints Of A Giant, Hidden Planet In Our Solar System", NPR.org (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
- Wikipedia, "Michael E. Brown" (CC BY-SA 4.0), which cites: Brown, "Mike and Diane's Fabulous Wedding Web Page"; Brown, "Lilah Binney Brown" (original not read by us) en.wikipedia.org
Each numbered sentence above was checked against the source it cites before publication. Sentences citing Wikipedia adapt text from the English Wikipedia article Michael E. Brown (contributors), used under CC BY-SA 4.0; this entry is available under the same licence. Other sources were used for facts only; no text or images are copied from them.
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