Richard Stothers was an

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 ...

and planetary scientist with the

Goddard Institute for Space Studies The Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) is a laboratory in the Earth Sciences Division of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center affiliated with the Columbia University Earth Institute. The institute is located at Columbia University in N ...

, which he joined in June 1961 as a graduate student. Within two years, he had received his Ph.D. from Harvard and became a permanent staff member of the institute, where he spent the remainder of his career. He contributed to the modern understanding of the origin and evolution of stars and, later in life, to climate science. He was able to read original papers in several languages, which allowed him to extract information on historical climate change from ancient writings. Stothers also examined ancient reports of unidentified flying objects and examined the factual basis for myths of "giant serpents". Sothers was raised in New York and graduated from Phillips Exeter Academy. He was a member of the Cum Laude Society. He attended college at Princeton, where he was a member of the fencing team, and majored in mathematics. His this was entitled “The Problem of Pulsating Stellar Models.” Stothers was an author on at least 196 scientific papers during his career, stretching from 1963 to 2012.

References

Planetary scientists Princeton University alumni Harvard University alumni 1939 births 2011 deaths {{US-astronomer-stub