Giovanni Battista Donati

Giovanni Battista Donati

Giovanni Battista Donati
Born (1826-12-16)16 December 1826
Pisa, Italy
Died 20 September 1873(1873-09-20) (aged 46)
Florence, Italy
Nationality Italy
Fields astronomy
Notable awards Lalande Prize (1858)

Giovanni Battista Donati Italian pronunciation: [dʒoˈvanni baˈtista doˈnaːti] (16 December 1826, Pisa, Italy – 20 September 1873, Florence, Italy) was an Italian astronomer.[1]

Donati graduated from the university of his native city, Pisa, and afterwards joined the staff of the Observatory of Florence in 1852. He was appointed director in 1864.[2]

Donati was also a pioneer in the spectroscopic study of the stars, the Sun, and comets.[2] He observed the total solar eclipse of July 18, 1860, at Torreblanca in Spain, and in the same year began experiments in stellar spectroscopy. In 1862 he published a memoir, Intorno alle strie degli spettri stellari, which indicated the feasibility of a physical classification of the stars.[3]

Donati also used spectroscopy of comets to determine their physical composition, in particular with the comet 1864b, which spectrum he found containing three emitting lines which would four years later be identified by William Huggins to be carbon. He discovered that the spectrum changed when a comet approached the Sun, and that heating caused it to emit its own light rather than reflected sunlight: he concluded that the composition of comets is, at least in part, gaseous.

Between 1854 and 1864 he discovered six new comets, including the spectacular Comet Donati (C/1858 L1), found in 1858.

An investigation of the great aurora of February 4, 1872, led Donati to refer such phenomena to a distinct branch of science, designated by him “cosmical meteorology”.[3] However, he could not follow up on the subject, as he died from cholera, which he had contracted while attending a scientific convention in Vienna, the following year.[1][2]

Honors

References

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Giovanni Battista Donati.
  1. 1 2 Giovanni Battista DONATI. in G. F. Tricomi, Matematici italiani del primo secolo dello stato unitario, Memorie dell'Accademia delle Scienze di Torino. Classe di Scienze fisiche matematiche e naturali, serie IV tomo I, 1962.
  2. 1 2 3 Донати, Джанбатиста, Great Soviet Encyclopedia (in Russian)
  3. 1 2  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Donati, Giovanni Battista". Encyclopædia Britannica. 8 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 408.


This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/15/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.