Eugène Joseph Delporte (10 January 1882 – 19 October 1955) was a

Belgian Belgian may refer to: * Something of, or related to, Belgium * Belgians, people from Belgium or of Belgian descent * Languages of Belgium, languages spoken in Belgium, such as Dutch, French, and German *Ancient Belgian language, an extinct languag ...

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 ...

born in

Genappe Genappe (; nl, Genepiën, ; wa, Djinape) is a city and municipality of Wallonia located in the Belgian province of Walloon Brabant. On 1 January 2006 Genappe had a total population of 14,136. The total area is 89.57 km2 which gives a popula ...

. He discovered a total of sixty-six asteroids. Notable discoveries include

1221 Amor 1221 Amor is an asteroid and near-Earth object on an eccentric orbit, approximately in diameter. It is the namesake of the Amor asteroids, the second-largest subgroup of near-Earth objects. It was discovered by Eugène Delporte at the Uccle O ...

(which lent its name to the

Amor asteroid The Amor asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after the archetype object 1221 Amor . The orbital perihelion of these objects is close to, but greater than, the orbital aphelion of Earth (i.e., the objects do not cross Earth's orbi ...

s) and the

Apollo asteroid The Apollo asteroids are a group of near-Earth asteroids named after 1862 Apollo, discovered by German astronomer Karl Reinmuth in the 1930s. They are Earth-crossing asteroids that have an orbital semi-major axis greater than that of the Earth ...

2101 Adonis. He discovered or co-discovered some

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ...

s as well, including periodic comet 57P/du Toit-Neujmin-Delporte. He worked in the Observatoire Royal de Belgique (Belgian Royal Observatory), situated in the town of

Uccle Uccle () or Ukkel () is one of the 19 municipalities of the Brussels-Capital Region, Belgium. In common with all of Brussels' municipalities, it is legally bilingual (French–Dutch). It is generally considered an affluent area of the city an ...

(after which the asteroid 1276 Ucclia is named). He started there in 1903 after receiving his doctorate that year from the

Free University of Brussels University of Brussels may refer to several institutions in Brussels, Belgium: Current institutions * Université libre de Bruxelles (ULB), a French-speaking university established as a separate entity in 1970 *Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB), a D ...

. In 1930 he drew the modern boundaries between all of the constellations in the sky, along lines of right ascension and declination for the

epoch In chronology and periodization, an epoch or reference epoch is an instant in time chosen as the origin of a particular calendar era. The "epoch" serves as a reference point from which time is measured. The moment of epoch is usually decided by ...

B1875.0. The Florian asteroid

1274 Delportia 1274 Delportia, provisional designation , is a stony Florian asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 10 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 28 November 1932, by Belgian astronomer Eugène Delporte at Uccle Ob ...

(discovered by himself) and the lunar impact crater '' Delporte'' were named after him.

List of discovered minor planets

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Delporte, Eugene 1882 births 1955 deaths 20th-century Belgian astronomers Discoverers of asteroids Discoverers of comets *