Fesenkov Vasily Grigoryevich General data:
13.01.1889 - 13.03.1972
Place of birth: Novocherkassk City, Don Army Region, Russian Empire
Studied in: Imperial Kharkiv University, Kharkiv province, Russian Empire (since 1999 V. N. Karazin Kharkiv National University, Kharkiv region, Ukraine) (1906-1911);
Key interests: history of astronomy, physics of comets, astrophysics, Jupiter and its satellites, Saturn and its satellites, solar physics, physics of planets, minor bodies of the Solar System, stellar catalogues, photometry, instruments and devices, geophysics, popularization of astronomy. PhD Thesis: About nature of Jupiter (1913 Imperial Kharkiv University); ScD Thesis: Zodiacal light (1914 University of Paris (Sorbonne));
Biography:
He was born on January 1, 1889 (according to the Julian calendar or 13 according to the Gregorian calendar) in the Novocherkassk city of the Areas of the Don army of the Russian Empire, in the family of a teacher of mathematics and physics.
As a student of Novocherkassk Real School, he was keenly interested in the exact sciences and at the same time successfully studied all subjects. He became interested in astronomy during his school years. He himself made a small telescope and made observations from the roof of his house. To enumerate the ephemeris of Comet Finleo, he found it in 1906 with this telescope.
In 1906 he entered the Imperial Kharkiv University. While still a student, he began active research. In the second year he performed the first scientific work "Method of determining solar parallax". Subsequently, his study "Determination of the final orbit of the comet Morehouse" was marked by a gold medal of the university, the result of Jupiter's observations on the Mertz reflector were two publications in 1911.
In 1911 he graduated from the Imperial Kharkiv University.
In 1912, a young scientist, L. O. Struve's student, was enlisted in Paris City, where he designed a surface photometer, with which he observed the zodiacal light in Medon and Nice. He returned to Kharkiv City in 1914.
In 1913 (according to other sources only in 1917) he defended his master's thesis "On the nature of Jupiter" at the Imperial Kharkiv University.
Returning to Kharkiv City, he studied the glow of the night sky, engaged in photometry of zones and bands of Jupiter with the help of a visual photometer created by him. The results of observations were published in two works in 1915 and 1917. In general, he is considered to be the first to start studying the moon, large and small planets at the university.
In 1916-1919 he taught astrophysics to students of Kharkiv University, receiving the position of associate professor of the university after passing the master's exams in 1915.
In February 1914, V. G. Fesenkov, together with N. N. Yevdokimov, using an astrograph mounted on a six-inch refractor, made careful observations of the bright long-period comet Delavan, whose rotation period is millions of years.
In 1914 he took part in an expedition to observe a total solar eclipse in Genichesk city in August 1914. He also took part in observations of solar eclipses in 1927, 1936, 1941 and 1945.
in 1914 he defended his doctoral dissertation "Zodiacal Light" at the Sorbonne University(France).
In 1920 he passed the competition for the position of professor of mechanics of Don Polytechnic Institute in Novocherkassk city and professor of Novocherkassk Pedagogical Institute, where he completed his doctoral dissertation "Evolution of the Solar System" and in the same year presented at Kharkiv University, but the defense did not take place because academic titles at that time were abolished.
In September 1921, an associate professor from Novocherkassk city, head of an expedition to find a place in the Caucasus for the astronomical observatory was introduced to members of the Moscow Society of Astronomy amateurs.
In next years, the scientist conducted a number of scientific expeditions: in 1927 he conducted an expedition near Odessa city to Sukhoy Liman city for study a number of issues of atmospheric optics, night glow, and determine the color of the stars, in 1934 an expedition to Kitab for study glow of the night sky, expeditions in 1937 to Karadag and in 1943 and 1944 in the Butakovka village near the Alma-Ata City of the Kazakh SSR for study the transparency of the atmosphere, in 1946 on Lapot mountain near the Talgar city of the Alma-Ata region of Kazakhstan SSR for the study of zodiacal light and transparency of the Earth's atmosphere. In 1947, he led an expedition to study the crash site of the Sikhote-Alin meteorite. In 1948, an expedition was conducted to the Sary-Ishik-Otrau desert and in 1949 to Issyk-Kul Lake for study the glow of the night sky, zodiacal light and light scattering in the Earth's atmosphere. In the summer of 1957 he made an expedition to the steppe region of Aksenger in the Alma-Ata region of the Kazakh SSR to study the zodiacal light, and in the autumn of the same year he studied the zodiacal light in the Libyan desert of Egypt, where he also gave several lectures at Cairo University and the Helwan Observatory.
In 1921, the scientist became one of the founders of the Russian Astrophysical Institute, which in
1923 was renamed the State Astrophysical Institute.
He worked at Kharkiv State University until 1922 and continued to maintain close ties with Kharkiv astronomers. For some time he headed the section of astromechanics and astrophysics of the research department of the Kharkiv Institute of Public Education, as the university was then called. During this period he performed work on the theory of twilight and compiled a photometric catalog of 1155 stars.
Since 1924 he was the editor-in-chief of the Astronomical Journal.
In 1926, a photometric catalog of 1155 stars was published under his supervision.
in 1928 he was awarded the degree of Doctor of Science for a set of works.
During 1930-1941 and after 1964 he worked at Moscow State University.
In 1935 he was elected an academician of the USSR Academy of Sciences, and in 1946 he was elected an academician of the Kazakh Academy of Sciences.
In July 1935, as part of the USSR delegation, he participated in the meetings of the Paris Assembly of the International Astronomical Union, which confirmed the official accession of the Soviet Union to the International Astronomical Union.
Since 1945 the astronomer was chairman of the Committee on Meteorites of the USSR Academy of Sciences.
He is the organizer of a number of astronomical institutions, in particular in 1923 he organized the Astrophysical Institute in Moscow City, and in 1942 the Institute of Astronomy and Physics at the Kazakh branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, which he headed until 1964.
He died on March 13, 1972.
Scientific works concern various fields of astronomy: physics of the Sun and the Moon and planets and the Solar system as a whole, physics of stars, nebulae of cosmogony, meteors. In particular, in the article "Can comets consist of antimatter?" // Earth and the Universe, 1966, № 4 he explained in a popular form why antibodies cannot exist not only in the solar system, but in our galaxy in general.
According to his Rotational Hypothesis, which was first published in 1922, the Sun and its planets were formed simultaneously from the gas-dust nebula in a single process of development of this complex of cold matter. Initially, all planets had the same chemical composition. However, later less massive and closer to the Sun planets lost their primary light elements (hydrogen and helium). He considered comets and asteroids to be the result of the destruction of a planet that once moved in an orbit between Mars and Jupiter.
He also developed a theory of the formation of stars in the fibers of gas-dust nebulae in places where weak gravitational interaction with neighbors allows proto-stars to maintain stability and not be broken by the tidal forces of neighbors.
In 1934 he developed a method for determining the temperatures of sunspots and torches by their brightness, determined by photographs of the solar disk. His first work on the Sun is devoted to the rotation of the Sun and the evolution of the star.
In 1943 he proved the failure of the hypothesis of J.H. Jeans on the origin of the solar system: together with P. P. Pariysky calculated the orbits of bodies pulled from the sun under the influence of a nearby star, and found correspondences with the solar system.
He developed a halo photometer and a number of other astrophysical instruments.
He was the initiator and supervisor-theorist and developer of geophysical and geodetic research using artificial satellites of the Earth.
In 1949, he confirmed the assumption of I. S. Astapovich that the Earth's atmosphere has a radiant gas tail, which, like comets, is always extended in the opposite direction from the Sun.
In addition to scientific work, he paid great attention to the promotion of astronomy.
In his honor named the crater on the moon, the crater on Mars, the small planet 2286 Fesenkov.
Main publications:
1. Фесенков В. Г. Аристарх Аполлонович Белопольский (1854— 1934).— В кн.: Люди русской науки. Т. 1, М.— Л., 1946, 171 — 178.
2. Фесенков В. Г. Очерк истории астрономии в России в XVII и XVIII столетиях.— Тр. ин-та истории естествознания. 1948, 2, 3 — 25
3. Фесенков В. Г. Метеориты и метеорное вещество: Избр. тр.- М.: Наука, 1978.-250с.
4. Парийский Н.Н., Огородников К.Ф., Фесенков В.Г. - Исследование влияния учета параллаксов звезд и галактического вращения на определение лунно-солнечной прецессии Ньюкома - Труды ГАИТИ, т.6, вып.1, с.104-194.(1935)
Sources:
1 Hockey T., Trimble V., Williams Th. R., et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. — New York: Springer, 2007.—Vol. 1, 2.—1341 p.
2 Воронцов-Вельямінов Б. А. Астрономическая Москва в двадцатые годы // Историко-астрономические исследования. Москва: Наука, 1986.- выпуск XVIII. -С.349, 359
3 Колчинский И. Г., Корсунь А. А., Родригес М. Г. Астрономы: Биографический справочник. — Киев: Наук. думка, 1986.—510 с.-С.327-328
4 Дивари Н. Б. В. Г. Фесенков — выдающийся астрофизик // Историко-астрономические исследования.—1990.—Вып. 22.—С. 302—326.
