Boris Petrovich Gerasimovich (russian: Борис Петрович Герасимович; – June 1937) was a

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

and

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, moons, comets and galaxies – in either o ...

and astrophysicist.

Biography

Gerasimovich was born in

Kremenchuk Kremenchuk (; uk, Кременчу́к, Kremenchuk ) is an industrial city in central Ukraine which stands on the banks of the Dnipro Dnipro, previously called Dnipropetrovsk from 1926 until May 2016, is Ukraine's fourth-largest city, w ...

(now in

Poltava Oblast Poltava Oblast ( uk, Полта́вська о́бласть, translit=Poltavska oblast; also referred to as Poltavshchyna – uk, Полта́вщина, literally 'Poltava Country') is an oblast (province) of central Ukraine. The administrative ...

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian invas ...

). He graduated from

Kharkiv University The Kharkiv University or Karazin University ( uk, Каразінський університет), or officially V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University ( uk, Харківський національний університет імені ...

in 1914 having studied under

Aristarkh Belopolsky Aristarkh Apollonovich Belopolsky (Аристарх Аполлонович Белопольский) (, Moscow – 16 May 1934, Pulkovo, Leningrad) was a Russian astronomer. He was born in Moscow but his father's ancestors are from a Serbian ...

. From 1917 until 1933 he worked at the

observatory. He became the director of the

Pulkovo Observatory The Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory (russian: Пулковская астрономическая обсерватория, Pulkovskaya astronomicheskaya observatoriya), officially named the Central Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academ ...

in 1933, but was arrested and executed during the

Great Purge The Great Purge or the Great Terror (russian: Большой террор), also known as the Year of '37 (russian: 37-й год, translit=Tridtsat sedmoi god, label=none) and the Yezhovshchina ('period of Yezhov'), was Soviet General Secreta ...

. He had a daughter, Tatiana Borisovna Gerasimovich. The crater '' Gerasimovich'' on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It is the fifth largest satellite in the Solar System and the largest and most massive relative to its parent planet, with a diameter about one-quarter that of Earth (comparable to the width ...

is named in his honor. A

minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term '' ...

2126 Gerasimovich 2126 Gerasimovich, provisional designation , is a stony background asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 8 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 30 August 1970, by Soviet astronomer Tamara Smirnova at the Cr ...

discovered in 1970 by

astronomer Tamara Mikhailovna Smirnova is also named after him.

References

External links

Letter from Military Prosecutor to T. B. Gerasimovich
1889 births 1937 deaths People from Kremenchuk Ukrainian astronomers Soviet astronomers Great Purge victims from Russia Russian people executed by the Soviet Union National University of Kharkiv alumni Academic staff of Kharkiv Observatory {{europe-astronomer-stub