Lyman Spitzer
The man who helped us see the universe in an new way
Born on 26 June 1914 in Toledo, Ohio, Spitzer may have inherited his eager and curious mind from his ancestor Eli Whitney, the inventor of the cotton gin, a machine that revolutionised the cotton industry. A natural and passionate learner, Spitzer earned a place at Yale University, where he studied physics. He also spent a year studying abroad at Cambridge University before finally entering Princeton, gaining a masters degree and a doctorate in astrophysics under the mentorship of the famous astronomer
Henry Norris Russell.
Spitzer took up a teaching position at Yale in 1939. When World War II broke out, he engaged in underwater sound research as part of the team that developed sonar. It was when he returned to Yale after the war was over that he had the idea that would place him firmly in the history books. In 1946 Spitzer conceived the notion of putting a telescope in outer space, theorising that if the device was in space it would bypass any issues of blurring as a result of being in our atmosphere, thereby producing clearer images than any terrestrial telescope could hope to achieve. He recorded these ideas in his paper AstronomicalAdvantagesofan Extra-TerrestrialObservatory.
Spitzer’s proposition was revolutionary for its time. It was over a decade before the first satellite was launched into space and 12 years before the creation of NASA. Undeterred by the opposition, Spitzer was dedicated to his space telescope and worked for the next 50 years of his life trying to make his dream a reality.
The professor’s excellence in astrophysics continued to attract attention. In 1947, aged just 33 years old, he was appointed chairman of Princeton University’s astrophysical sciences department as well as the director of the university’s observatory. Under his leadership, it became an important research facility. He fervently studied the interstellar medium and star formation, and his work in this field has led many to hail him as the founder of the study of the interstellar medium.
Spitzer added to his accolades by being appointed president of the American Astronomical Society in 1960. He was lucky enough to be able to watch as the space program developed and his own concept of putting telescopes in space came closer to reality than ever before. In 1962 he designed an observatory that could orbit Earth. This very same observatory later became the Copernicus satellite, used by NASA between 1972 and 1981. While many of his peers were opposed to the cost of Spitzer’s space telescope, he worked tirelessly to convince the academic community and US Congress that it was a worthwhile endeavour, and he finally achieved it in 1968 with the Orbiting Astronomical Observatory.
Although he was decorated with awards for his achievements, Spitzer didn’t slow down, managing to convince both NASA and Congress to begin work on the Hubble Space Telescope in 1975. Because of Spitzer’s efforts, Congress agreed to fund the construction of the telescope in 1977. In 1990, 44 years after Spitzer first envisioned the existence of a telescope in space, the Hubble Space Telescope was launched. To this day Spitzer’s creation has delivered stunning and breathtaking images that were previously unfathomable, helping us to understand space and leading to countless new discoveries.
Lyman Spitzer worked tirelessly, even up to the day he died: when he passed away suddenly on 31 March 1997, aged 82, he had just finished discussing exciting new ideas with his colleagues and studying the results from the Hubble Space Telescope. In 2003 NASA launched a brand-new observatory into Earth’s orbit, which the agency named the Spitzer Space Telescope in honour of the man whose vision and determination made it all possible.