Marat Arakelian

Did You Know?

• Arakelian became a member of the International Astronomical Union in 1973, joining Commission #28 Galaxies.
• Galaxies in his catalog carry the designations ARK or Akn, such as ARK 120 (Akn 120) and ARK 564 (Akn 564).
• He co-authored the textbook Astronomy for secondary schools, which had three editions in 1970, 1971, and 1973.

Early life and education

Arakelian was born in Goris, Syunik Province, in the Armenian Soviet Socialist Republic. He attended Yerevan State University's Physical-Mathematical Department, graduating in 1951 as one of its first students specializing in astrophysics. He was assigned to the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory, working as assistant astronomer and later junior research associate. He completed postgraduate study at Leningrad State University in 1955 and defended his Ph.D. thesis on the spectrophotometric investigation of Algol in 1956 under Prof. Oleg Aleksandrovich Melnikov.

Career

From 1957 to 1959, Marat Arakelian worked as a senior teacher in the astrophysics department at Yerevan State University while continuing his other duties. He then spent six years at Leningrad State University, where he served as a junior researcher and lecturer. After earning the title of associate professor in 1966, he returned to the Byurakan Astrophysical Observatory and also taught at Yerevan. Alongside L.V. Mirzoyan, A.T. Kalloghlian, and H.M. Tovmassian, he helped write a secondary school astronomy textbook that saw three editions in the early 1970s. He became a senior researcher at Byurakan in 1967. In 1977, he completed his second doctoral thesis at Moscow State University, focusing on spectral observations and statistics of galaxies with active nuclei, which earned him a Doctor of Sciences degree. Five years later, he was chosen to lead the Department of Astrophysics and Theoretical Physics at the Armenian State Pedagogical University named after Khachatur Abovian. He contributed a lengthy review on galaxy clusters to the 1981 book Problems of Extragalactic Astronomy. Before passing away at age 54 in Moscow, he had published more than 80 research articles.