Nikolay Alexandrovich Kozyrev
| Nikolai Aleksandrovich Kozyrev | |
|---|---|
| Born |
September 2, 1908 St. Petersburg |
| Died | February 27, 1983 (aged 74) Leningrad |
| Nationality | Soviet |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astrophysics |
Nikolai Alexandrovich Kozyrev (Russian: Никола́й Алекса́ндрович Ко́зырев; September 2, 1908 – February 27, 1983) was a Soviet astronomer/astrophysicist.
He was born in St. Petersburg, and by 1928 he had graduated from the Leningrad State University. In 1931 he began working at the Pulkovo Observatory, located to the south of Leningrad. He was considered to be one of the most promising astrophysicists in Russia. Kozyrev was a victim of the Stalinist purges of the Pulkovo Observatory. Started by the accusations of a disgruntled graduate student, most of the observatory staff died as a result. Kozyrev was arrested in November 1936 and sentenced to 10 years for counterrevolutionary activity. In January 1941, he was given another 10-year sentence for "hostile propaganda". While incarcerated, he was allowed to work in engineering-type jobs. Due to the lobbying by his colleagues, he won an early release from detention in December 1946. As a result of his imprisonment he was mentioned in The Gulag Archipelago by Alexandr Solzhenitsyn.
During his imprisonment, Kozyrev attempted to continue working on purely theoretical physics. He considered the problem of the energy source of stars and formulated a theory. But in his isolation, he was unaware of the discovery of atomic energy. After his release, Kozyrev refused to believe the theory that stars are powered by atomic fusion.
Kozyrev was a bold thinker and was respected by prominent scientists of his time (Arkady Kuzmin, Vasily Moroz, and Iosef Shklovsky all speak highly of him), even though his work was often of a very doubtful nature. Among these theories was the claim that the polar caps of Mars were purely atmospheric cloud formations, rather than ice-covered ground.
He is most noted for his observation of the transient lunar phenomenon in the crater Alphonsus on the Moon. In 1958 he observed a patch of white within the crater, and a spectrum of the area appeared to reveal an emission cloud of carbon particles. Transient lunar phenomenon had long recorded what appeared to be temporary emissions on the lunar surface, and Kozyrev's observation was the first observation of the kind, and appeared to provide confirmation that the Moon was volcanically active.
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