Benjamin Michael Zuckerman (born August 16, 1943) is an astrophysicist and an emeritus professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a Normal school, teachers colle ...

. His recent work focus primarily on formation and evolution of planetary systems around various types of

stars A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma (physics), plasma held together by its gravity. The List of nearest stars and brown dwarfs, nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked ...

Education

Zuckerman completed two degrees in 1963, one in Physics and one in Aeronautic & Astronautics at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

. He finished his PhD thesis in Astronomy in 1968 at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of high ...

Scientific publications

Since 1965, Zuckerman has published well over 200 refereed papers in journals such as ''

Astrophysical Journal ''The Astrophysical Journal'', often abbreviated ''ApJ'' (pronounced "ap jay") in references and speech, is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of astrophysics and astronomy, established in 1895 by American astronomers George Ellery Hale and Jam ...

'', ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. Although humans ar ...

'', ''

Astronomy & Astrophysics ''Astronomy & Astrophysics'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering theoretical, observational, and instrumental astronomy and astrophysics. The journal is run by a Board of Directors representing 27 sponsoring countries plus a re ...

'' and ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that Scientific method, builds and organizes knowledge in the form of Testability, testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earli ...

'', of which he was first author for close to 100. He also produced a number of review papers in Annual review of astronomy and astrophysics. In 2001, he participated in the Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Zuckerman was co-author of a 2008 paper reporting first directly-imaged multiplanetary system (arguably, the first directly imaged planets) around

HR 8799 HR 8799 is a roughly 30 million-year-old main-sequence star located away from Earth in the constellation of Pegasus. It has roughly 1.5 times the Sun's mass and 4.9 times its luminosity. It is part of a system that also ...

and a 2010 paper discovering a fourth imaged planet in the system: HR 8799 e.

Outreach work

In 1982, Zuckerman co-edited a book called ''Extraterrestrials, Where Are They'' with Michael Hart. The book was republished in 1995. He also co-authored the book ''The Origin and Evolution of the Universe'' with Matthew A. Malkan. In 1996, he also wrote with David Jefferson the book ''Human Population and the Environmental Crisis'', following a public symposium of the same name held at UCLA in October 1993.Description of the book
on AbeBooks website.

References

External links

Benjamin Zuckerman webpage
on

Department of Physics and Astronomy website
Benjamin Zuckerman’s Astronomy Web Page

Benjamin Zuckerman's page
on

NASA Astrobiology Institute The NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) was established in 1998 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) "to develop the field of astrobiology and provide a scientific framework for flight missions." In December 2019 the institut ...

website
Benjamin Zuckerman publication list
on

NASA ADS The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is an online database of over 16 million astronomy and physics papers from both peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed sources. Abstracts are available free online for almost all articles, and full scann ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zuckerman, Benjamin Living people MIT Department of Physics alumni Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni American astrophysicists University of California, Los Angeles faculty 1943 births MIT School of Engineering alumni