Iosif Samuilovich Shklovsky (sometimes transliterated ''Josif, Josif, Shklovskii, Shklovskij''; ; 1 July 1916 – 3 March 1985) was a Soviet

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 astrophysicist. He is remembered for his work in theoretical

astrophysics Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline, James Keeler, said, astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the ...

and other topics, as well as for his 1962 book on

extraterrestrial life Extraterrestrial life, or alien life (colloquially, aliens), is life that originates from another world rather than on Earth. No extraterrestrial life has yet been scientifically conclusively detected. Such life might range from simple forms ...

, the revised and expanded version of which was co-authored by American astronomer

Carl Sagan Carl Edward Sagan (; ; November 9, 1934December 20, 1996) was an American astronomer, planetary scientist and science communicator. His best known scientific contribution is his research on the possibility of extraterrestrial life, including e ...

in 1966 as ''Intelligent Life in the Universe''. He won the

Lenin Prize The Lenin Prize (, ) was one of the most prestigious awards of the Soviet Union for accomplishments relating to science, literature, arts, architecture, and technology. It was originally created on June 23, 1925, and awarded until 1934. During ...

in 1960 and the

Bruce Medal The Catherine Wolfe Bruce Gold Medal is awarded every year by the Astronomical Society of the Pacific for outstanding lifetime contributions to astronomy. It is named after Catherine Wolfe Bruce, an American patroness of astronomy, and was ...

in 1972.

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 ...

2849 Shklovskij and the crater Shklovsky (on the

Martian Mars, the fourth planet from the Sun, has appeared as a setting in works of fiction since at least the mid-1600s. Trends in the planet's portrayal have largely been influenced by advances in planetary science. It became the most popular celes ...

moon Phobos) are named in his honor. He was a Corresponding Member of Soviet Academy of Sciences since 1966.

Early life

Shklovsky was born in Hlukhiv, a city in the Ukrainian part of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

, into a poor Ukrainian Jewish family. After graduating from the seven-year secondary school, he worked as a foreman on building

Baikal Amur Mainline Lake Baikal is a rift lake and the deepest lake in the world. It is situated in southern Siberia, Russia between the Federal subjects of Russia, federal subjects of Irkutsk Oblast, Irkutsk Oblasts of Russia, Oblast to the northwest and the Repu ...

. In 1933 Shklovsky entered the Physico-Mathematical Faculty of the

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

. There he studied until 1938, when he took a Postgraduate Course at the Astrophysics Department of the Sternberg State Astronomical Institute and remained working in the Institute until the end of his life. He died in Moscow, aged 68.

Research

He specialized in theoretical

and

radio astronomy Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies Astronomical object, celestial objects using radio waves. It started in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation coming from the Milky Way. Subsequent observat ...

, as well as the

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

's corona,

supernova A supernova (: supernovae or supernovas) is a powerful and luminous explosion of a star. A supernova occurs during the last stellar evolution, evolutionary stages of a massive star, or when a white dwarf is triggered into runaway nuclear fusion ...

e, and

cosmic ray Cosmic rays or astroparticles are high-energy particles or clusters of particles (primarily represented by protons or atomic nuclei) that move through space at nearly the speed of light. They originate from the Sun, from outside of the ...

s and their origins. He showed, in 1946, that the radio-wave radiation from the Sun emanates from the ionized layers of its corona, and he developed a mathematical method for discriminating between thermal and nonthermal radio waves in the

Milky Way The Milky Way or Milky Way Galaxy is the galaxy that includes the Solar System, with the name describing the #Appearance, galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars in other arms of the galax ...

. He is noted especially for his suggestion that the radiation from the

Crab Nebula The Crab Nebula (catalogue designations M1, NGC 1952, Taurus A) is a supernova remnant and pulsar wind nebula in the constellation of Taurus (constellation), Taurus. The common name comes from a drawing that somewhat resembled a crab with arm ...

is due to synchrotron radiation, in which unusually energetic electrons twist through magnetic fields at speeds close to that of light. Shklovsky proposed that cosmic rays from supernova explosions within 300 light years of the sun could have been responsible for some of the mass extinctions of life on earth. In 1959, Shklovsky examined the orbital motion of

Mars Mars is the fourth planet from the Sun. It is also known as the "Red Planet", because of its orange-red appearance. Mars is a desert-like rocky planet with a tenuous carbon dioxide () atmosphere. At the average surface level the atmosph ...

's inner satellite Phobos. He concluded that its orbit was decaying, and noted that if this decay was attributed to friction with the Martian atmosphere, then the satellite must have an exceptionally low density. In this context, he voiced a suggestion that Phobos might be hollow, and possibly of artificial origin. This interpretation has since been refuted by more detailed study, but the apparent suggestion of extraterrestrial involvement caught the public imagination, though there is some disagreement as to how seriously Shklovsky intended the idea to be taken. However, Shklovsky and

argued for serious consideration of " paleocontact" with extraterrestrials in the early historical era, and for examination of myths and religious lore for evidence of such contact. His 1962 book, Вселенная, жизнь, разум (''Universe, Life, Intelligence''), was expanded upon and re-issued in 1966 with American astronomer

as co-author under the title ''Intelligent Life in the Universe'' (1966). This was the first comprehensive discussion of this field. Discussing the biological as well as astronomical issues of the subject, its unique format, alternating paragraphs written by Shklovsky and Sagan, demonstrated the deep mutual regard between the two and allowed them to express their views without compromise. In 1967, before the discovery of

pulsar A pulsar (''pulsating star, on the model of quasar'') is a highly magnetized rotating neutron star that emits beams of electromagnetic radiation out of its Poles of astronomical bodies#Magnetic poles, magnetic poles. This radiation can be obse ...

s, Shklovsky examined the X-ray and optical observations of Scorpius X-1 and correctly concluded that the radiation comes from an accreting

neutron star A neutron star is the gravitationally collapsed Stellar core, core of a massive supergiant star. It results from the supernova explosion of a stellar evolution#Massive star, massive star—combined with gravitational collapse—that compresses ...

Quotes

In the September 1965 issue of ''Soviet Life'',NSA Technical Journal, Winter 1966 - Vol. XI, No. 1: Communications with Extraterrestrial Intelligence he made the following statement regarding prospects for the future of humanity: :''Profound crises lie in wait for a developing civilization and one of them may well prove fatal. We are already familiar with several such critical (situations):'' ::''(a) Self-destruction as a result of a thermonuclear catastrophe or some other discovery which may have unpredictable and uncontrollable consequences.'' ::''(b) Genetic danger.'' ::''(c) Overproduction of information.'' ::''(d) Restricted capacity of the individual's brain which can lead to excessive specialization, with consequent dangers of degeneration.'' ::''(e) A crisis precipitated by the creation of artificial intelligent beings.''

Personal life

His memoir, ''Five Billion Vodka Bottles to the Moon: Tales of a Soviet Scientist,'' was published posthumously in 1991 by W.W. Norton & Co. In "Five Billion Vodka Bottles to the Moon", Shklovsky recalled his visit to Philip Morrison, who in 1959 had co-authored with

Cornell University Cornell University is a Private university, private Ivy League research university based in Ithaca, New York, United States. The university was co-founded by American philanthropist Ezra Cornell and historian and educator Andrew Dickson W ...

colleague Giuseppe Cocconi the paper in Nature magazine which marks the beginning of the modern search for extraterrestrial life, and their discussion of such issues. Bitter over Soviet anti-semitism, of the five pioneer investigators of the field, Cocconi, Morrison,

's Frank Drake (of the 1961 Project Ozma and the Drake equation), Sagan, and Shklovsky, Shklovsky was quite aware of sharing his Jewish identity with Sagan. Indeed, Sagan's Jewish heritage was also Ukrainian Jewish. He was known for his sharp wit and extreme likability. Colleagues in the astronomy department at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California), is a Public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Berkeley, California, United States. Founded in 1868 and named after t ...

, remember fondly his visit there in the 1970s. Well known for his ''Intelligent Life in the Universe'', he was asked by a graduate student if UFO sightings are as common in the Soviet Union as in the United States. "No," he replied. "In this area the Americans are far more advanced than us."

Bibliography

*I.S. Shklovsky: ''Cosmic Radio Waves'', Cambridge, Harvard University Press, 1960 *I.S. Shklovsky: ''Вселенная, жизнь, разум'' (), Moscow, USSR Academy of Sciences Publisher, 1962 **Revised and extended English translation of this book, coauthored with

, was first published in 1966, under the name ''Intelligent Life in the Universe'', one of the latest reissues was published in 1998 by Emerson-Adams Press () *I.S. Shklovsky: ''Physics of the Solar Corona'', Pergamon Press, Oxford, UK, 1965 *I.S. Shklovskii, ''Supernovae'', New York: Wiley, 1968 *I.S. Shklovsky: ''Stars: Their Birth, Life, Death'', San Francisco, 1978, *I.S. Shklovsky: ''Five Billion Vodka Bottles to the Moon: Tales of a Soviet Scientist'', W.W. Norton & Company, 1991.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Shklovsky, Iosif 1916 births 1985 deaths People from Hlukhiv People from Chernigov Governorate Moscow State University alumni Academic staff of Moscow State University Jewish astronomers Soviet astronomers Soviet astrophysicists Search for extraterrestrial intelligence Interstellar messages Radio astronomers Corresponding Members of the USSR Academy of Sciences Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences Jewish Ukrainian scientists Ukrainian astrophysicists Russian scientists