Fyodor Aleksandrovich Bredikhin (, 8 December O.S. 26 November">Old_Style_and_New_Style_dates.html" ;"title="nowiki/>Old Style and New Style dates">O.S. 26 November1831 – 14 May [O.S. 1 May] 1904) was a Russian astronomer. His surname is sometimes given as Bredichin in the literature, and non-Russian sources sometimes render his first name as Theodor.

Career

In 1857 he joined the staff of the

observatory An observatory is a location used for observing terrestrial, marine, or celestial events. Astronomy, climatology/meteorology, geophysics, oceanography and volcanology are examples of disciplines for which observatories have been constructed. Th ...

Moscow University Moscow State University (MSU), officially M. V. Lomonosov Moscow State University,. is a public research university in Moscow, Russia. The university includes 15 research institutes, 43 faculties, more than 300 departments, and six branches. Al ...

, becoming its director in 1873. In 1890 he became director of

Pulkovo Observatory The Pulkovo Astronomical Observatory (), officially named the Central Astronomical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences at Pulkovo, is the principal astronomical observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences. It is located 19 km south ...

(until 1894) and in the same year became a member of the

Russian Academy of Sciences The Russian Academy of Sciences (RAS; ''Rossíyskaya akadémiya naúk'') consists of the national academy of Russia; a network of scientific research institutes from across the Russian Federation; and additional scientific and social units such ...

. He studied the theory of

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that warms and begins to release gases when passing close to the Sun, a process called outgassing. This produces an extended, gravitationally unbound atmosphere or Coma (cometary), coma surrounding ...

tails, and also studied

meteor A meteor, known colloquially as a shooting star, is a glowing streak of a small body (usually meteoroid) going through Earth's atmosphere, after being heated to incandescence by collisions with air molecules in the upper atmosphere, creating a ...

s and

meteor shower A meteor shower is a celestial event in which a number of meteors are observed to radiate, or originate, from one point in the night sky. These meteors are caused by streams of cosmic debris called meteoroids entering Earth's atmosphere at ext ...

Legacy

The

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

786 Bredichina and the crater Bredikhin on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

are named after him. The is awarded by the

References

Bibliography

External links

Obituary AN 165 (1904) 351/352
(in German)

1831 births 1904 deaths 19th-century astronomers from the Russian Empire Full members of the Saint Petersburg Academy of Sciences 19th-century astronomers Imperial Moscow University alumni {{Europe-astronomer-stub