Kazimierz Kordylewski (born 11 October 1903 – 11 March 1981) was a Polish

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 ...

. He is known for his discovery of the

Kordylewski cloud Kordylewski clouds, also named ghost moons, are concentrations of dust that exist at the and Lagrangian points of the Earth–Moon system. They were first reported by Polish astronomer Kazimierz Kordylewski in the 1960s, and confirmed to exist ...

s, two clouds of dust concentrated at 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 ...

's and

Lagrange point In celestial mechanics, the Lagrange points (; also Lagrangian points or libration points) are points of equilibrium for small-mass objects under the gravitational influence of two massive orbiting bodies. Mathematically, this involves t ...

s. Kazimierz Kordylewski was born on 11 October 1903 in

Poznań Poznań ( ) is a city on the Warta, River Warta in west Poland, within the Greater Poland region. The city is an important cultural and business center and one of Poland's most populous regions with many regional customs such as Saint John's ...

to Francizska and Władysław Kordylewski. He attended Saint Mary Magdelene High School, where he graduated in 1922, before studying for two years at the

University of Poznań A university () is an institution of tertiary education and research which awards academic degrees in several academic disciplines. ''University'' is derived from the Latin phrase , which roughly means "community of teachers and scholars". Univ ...

. He moved to the

Jagiellonian University The Jagiellonian University (, UJ) is a public research university in Kraków, Poland. Founded in 1364 by Casimir III the Great, King Casimir III the Great, it is the oldest university in Poland and one of the List of oldest universities in con ...

in 1924, and earned a PhD degree in 1932. Kordylewski was employed at the astronomical observatory of the Jagiellonian University as a junior assistant, where he worked near-continuously until his retirement in 1974. He worked frequently with eclipsing variable stars, taking over 40,000 measurements of such stars throughout his life. In December 1925, while taking observations of the eclipsing variable S Corvi, Kordylewski discovered a previously unknown

variable star A variable star is a star whose brightness as seen from Earth (its apparent magnitude) changes systematically with time. This variation may be caused by a change in emitted light or by something partly blocking the light, so variable stars are ...

. Further observations determined the star to be a

Mira variable Mira variables (named for the prototype star Mira) are a class of pulsating stars characterized by very red colours, pulsation periods longer than 100 days, and amplitudes greater than one magnitude in infrared and 2.5 magnitude at visual wave ...

, whose very red color allowed it to escape prior detection on photographic plates. The next year, he discovered the

nova A nova ( novae or novas) is a transient astronomical event that causes the sudden appearance of a bright, apparently "new" star (hence the name "nova", Latin for "new") that slowly fades over weeks or months. All observed novae involve white ...

T Corvi. Starting in 1951, Kordylewski began searching for trojan satellites in the Moon's L₄ (leading) and L₅ (trailing) points. In 1956, he claimed the discovery of the

s, large transient concentrations of

dust Dust is made of particle size, fine particles of solid matter. On Earth, it generally consists of particles in the atmosphere that come from various sources such as soil lifted by wind (an aeolian processes, aeolian process), Types of volcan ...

at the Trojan points of the

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to Planetary habitability, harbor life. This is enabled by Earth being an ocean world, the only one in the Solar System sustaining liquid surface water. Almost all ...

–Moon system, which were reported to have been confirmed to exist in October 2018. Kordylewski married Jadwiga Pojak in 1929, and with her had four children. He died suddenly on 11 March 1981 in

Kraków , officially the Royal Capital City of Kraków, is the List of cities and towns in Poland, second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city has a population of 804,237 ...

, Poland.

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External links

A page about Kazimierz KordylewskiArchived
on 26 January 2005. 1903 births 1981 deaths 20th-century Polish astronomers Discoverers of moons Jagiellonian University alumni Scientists from Poznań Scientists from Kraków Burials at Rakowicki Cemetery {{Poland-scientist-stub

See also

References

External links