Brett James Gladman (born April 19, 1966)
/ref> is a Canadian
Canadians () are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of their being ''C ...
astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...
and a full professor at the University of British Columbia
The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...
's Department of Physics and Astronomy in Vancouver
Vancouver is a major city in Western Canada, located in the Lower Mainland region of British Columbia. As the List of cities in British Columbia, most populous city in the province, the 2021 Canadian census recorded 662,248 people in the cit ...
, British Columbia
British Columbia is the westernmost Provinces and territories of Canada, province of Canada. Situated in the Pacific Northwest between the Pacific Ocean and the Rocky Mountains, the province has a diverse geography, with rugged landscapes that ...
. He holds the Canada Research Chair
Canada Research Chair (CRC) is a title given to certain Canadian university research professors by the Canada Research Chairs Program.
Program goals
The Canada Research Chair program was established in 2000 as a part of the Government of Canada ...
in planetary astronomy
Planetary science (or more rarely, planetology) is the scientific study of planets (including Earth), celestial bodies (such as moons, asteroids, comets) and planetary systems (in particular those of the Solar System) and the processes of their f ...
.
Career
Gladman is best known for his work in dynamical astronomy in the Solar System. He has studied the transport of meteorites between planets, the delivery of meteoroids from the main asteroid belt, and the possibility of the transport of life via this mechanism, known as panspermia
Panspermia () is the hypothesis that life exists throughout the universe, distributed by space dust, meteoroids, asteroids, comets, and planetoids, as well as by spacecraft carrying unintended contamination by microorganisms,Forward planetary c ...
. He also studies planet formation, especially the puzzle of how the giant planets came to be.
He is discoverer or co-discoverer of many astronomical bodies in the Solar System
The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Sola ...
, asteroids, Kuiper Belt comets, and many moons
A natural satellite is, in the most common usage, an astronomical body that orbits a planet, dwarf planet, or small Solar System body (or sometimes another natural satellite). Natural satellites are colloquially referred to as moons, a deriva ...
of the giant planets:
* Uranus
Uranus is the seventh planet from the Sun. It is a gaseous cyan-coloured ice giant. Most of the planet is made of water, ammonia, and methane in a Supercritical fluid, supercritical phase of matter, which astronomy calls "ice" or Volatile ( ...
: Caliban
Caliban ( ), the subhuman son of the sea witch Sycorax, is an important character in William Shakespeare's play ''The Tempest''.
His character is one of the few Shakespearean figures to take on a life of its own "outside" Shakespeare's own w ...
, Sycorax
Sycorax is an unseen character in William Shakespeare's play ''The Tempest'' (1611). She is a vicious and powerful witch and the mother of Caliban (character), Caliban, one of the few native inhabitants of the island on which Prospero, the he ...
, Prospero
Prospero ( ) is a fictional character and the protagonist of William Shakespeare's ''The Tempest''.
Character
Twelve years before the play begins, Prospero is usurped from his position as the rightful Duke of Milan by his brother Antonio, ...
, Setebos
Setebos (also Settaboth) was a deity of the Tehuelche people of eastern Patagonia. The name was recorded by Europeans traveling with Ferdinand Magellan during the first circumnavigation of the world (1519–1522), and again some 58 years later b ...
, Stephano, and Ferdinand
Ferdinand is a Germanic name composed of the elements "journey, travel", Proto-Germanic , abstract noun from root "to fare, travel" (PIE , "to lead, pass over"), and "courage" or "ready, prepared" related to Old High German "to risk, ventu ...
* Saturn
Saturn is the sixth planet from the Sun and the second largest in the Solar System, after Jupiter. It is a gas giant, with an average radius of about 9 times that of Earth. It has an eighth the average density of Earth, but is over 95 tim ...
: A dozen satellites in several groups, each named after a theme of Canadian Inuit gods, French deities, and Norse gods
* Neptune
Neptune is the eighth and farthest known planet from the Sun. It is the List of Solar System objects by size, fourth-largest planet in the Solar System by diameter, the third-most-massive planet, and the densest giant planet. It is 17 t ...
: The satellite Neso
* Jupiter
Jupiter is the fifth planet from the Sun and the List of Solar System objects by size, largest in the Solar System. It is a gas giant with a Jupiter mass, mass more than 2.5 times that of all the other planets in the Solar System combined a ...
: Discovery and co-discovery of 6 moons
Gladman is a member of the Canada–France Ecliptic Plane Survey
This is a list of minor-planet discoverers credited by the Minor Planet Center with the discovery of one or several minor planets (such as near-Earth and main-belt asteroids, Jupiter trojans and distant objects). , the discovery of 612,011 num ...
(CFEPS), and the Outer Solar System Origins Survey (OSSOS) which has detected and tracked the world's largest sample of well-understood Kuiper belt comets, including unusual objects like ("Buffy") and ("Drac"), the first trans-Neptunian object on a retrograde orbit around the Sun.
Honors and awards
Gladman was awarded the H. C. Urey Prize
The Harold C. Urey Prize is awarded annually by the Division for Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society. The prize recognizes and encourages outstanding achievements in planetary science by a young scientist. The prize is named af ...
by the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society
The American Astronomical Society (AAS, sometimes spoken as "double-A-S") is an American society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The primary objective of the AAS is to promote the adv ...
in 2002. The main-belt
The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, centered on the Sun and roughly spanning the space between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies called asteroids ...
asteroid 7638 Gladman is named in his honor.
List of discovered minor planets
Partial listing only below; discoveries number in the many hundreds of asteroids and Kuiper Belt objects.
See also
*
References
External links
Brett Gladman at the Astronomy group
of the Dept. of Physics and Astronomy, UBC and Institute of Planetary Science
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gladman, Brett
1966 births
21st-century Canadian astronomers
Canada Research Chairs
Discoverers of minor planets
Discoverers of moons
Discoverers of trans-Neptunian objects
*
Living people
Place of birth missing (living people)
Planetary scientists
Academic staff of the University of British Columbia