Barbara M. Middlehurst

Barbara Mary Middlehurst (September 15, 1915 – March 6, 1995) was a Welsh astronomer.

Barbara M. Middlehurst
BornSeptember 15, 1915
Penarth, Glamorgan, Wales
DiedMarch 6, 1995
Houston, Texas
Occupationastronomer, writer

Early life

Barbara Mary Middlehurst was born in Penarth, Glamorgan, Wales.[1] She attended Penarth County School for Girls and Girton College, Cambridge, where she studied mathematics. She earned a bachelor's degree in 1936 and a master's degree in 1947.[2] She built her astronomy credentials over several years of independent reading and practice.[3]

Career

Middlehurst taught mathematics at Penarth as a young woman.[3] During World War II she drove an ambulance in her hometown. In 1951, Middlehurst joined the staff of the observatory at the University of St. Andrews in Scotland. She moved to the United States in 1959, to join the staff at Yerkes Observatory in Wisconsin. She also worked at the Steward Observatory in Tucson, Arizona,[4] and at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas.[5] Her research focused on Transient Lunar Phenomena (TLPs).[6][7] She co-compiled a 1968 catalog of TLPs for NASA,[8] with Jaylee Burley Mead, Patrick Moore, and Barbara Welther.[9][10][11]

She was co-editor with Gerard Kuiper of Telescopes (1960),[12] The Solar System III: Planets and Satellites (1961),[13] and The Solar System IV: The Moon, Meteorites and Comets (1963).[14] She was associate general editor of a nine-volume series, Stars and Stellar Systems (1968), again working with Kuiper, and co-edited the volume Nebulae and Interstellar Matter (with Lawrence H. Aller).[15] She was astronomy editor for Encyclopedia Britannica.[2]

She was active in the American Astronomical Society[16] and in the International Astronomical Union, and served as secretary of the IAU's Commission on the Moon in 1970.[17] She was elected a fellow of the American Geophysical Union in 1972;[2] she was also a fellow of the Royal Astronomical Society, elected in 1949.[18]

Personal life

Middlehurst retired to Clear Lake City, Houston, where she died in 1995, aged 79 years, after a stroke.[2] In 2009, Astro-Cymru, a Welsh Heritage Lottery project, included Middlehurst on a short list of notable Welsh astronomers for school projects, programs, and exhibits, to "celebrate 400 years of Welsh astronomy".[19][20]

References
  1. Jones, Bryn (2009). "Historical Welsh Publications on Astronomy". JonesBryn. Retrieved 2019-06-24.
  2. Jeffreys, Bertha Swirles (1995). "Barbara Mary Middlehurst (1915 - 1995)". Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society. 36: 461–462. Bibcode:1995QJRAS..36..461J.
  3. Davis, Len (July 29, 1967). "Star Gazing Stars". Tucson Daily Citizen. p. 36. Retrieved June 24, 2019 – via NewspaperArchive.com.
  4. "UA Savants to Tell of Moon Studies". Arizona Daily Star. April 19, 1966. p. 22. Retrieved June 23, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  5. Sears, Derek W. G. (2019-03-26). Gerard P. Kuiper and the Rise of Modern Planetary Science. University of Arizona Press. pp. 246–247. ISBN 9780816539734.
  6. Middlehurst, Barbara M. (1966). "Transient Lunar Events: Possible Causes". Nature. 209 (5023): 602. doi:10.1038/209602a0. ISSN 1476-4687.
  7. Middlehurst, Barbara M.; Burley, Jaylee (1966-05-01). "Apparent Lunar Activity: Historical Review". Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. 55 (5): 1007–1011. doi:10.1073/pnas.55.5.1007. ISSN 0027-8424. PMC 224267. PMID 16591349.
  8. Middlehurst, Barbara M. (1968). Chronological catalog of reported lunar events. Wellesley College Library. [Washington] National Aeronautics and Space Administration.
  9. Bellemare, Pierre Marc (2014), "Middlehurst, Barbara Mary", in Hockey, Thomas; Trimble, Virginia; Williams, Thomas R.; Bracher, Katherine (eds.), Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, Springer New York, pp. 1476–1478, doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_949, ISBN 9781441999177
  10. "Strange Moon Events Listed". Orlando Evening Star. August 1, 1968. p. 31. Retrieved June 23, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  11. Wilford, John Noble (July 17, 1980). "Those Strange Glows on the Moon". Honolulu Star-Bulletin. p. 72. Retrieved June 23, 2019 – via Newspapers.com.
  12. Kuiper, Gerard P.; Middlehurst, Barbara M. (1960). Telescopes. Osmania University, Digital Library Of India. The University Of Chicago Press.
  13. Gerard P. Kuiper & Barbara M. Middlehurst (1961). Planets and Satellites. University of Chicago Press.
  14. "Summary Bibliography: Barbara M. Middlehurst". ISFDB. Retrieved 2019-06-24.
  15. Barbara M. Middlehurst & Lawrence H. Aller (eds.) (1968). Nebulae and Interstellar Matter. University of Chicago Press.CS1 maint: extra text: authors list (link)
  16. "Barbara Middlehurst at the American Astronomical Society (AAS) meeting". John Irwin Slide Collection. 2014-02-24. Retrieved 2019-06-24.
  17. "Member: Barbara M. Middlehurst". International Astronomical Union. Retrieved 2019-06-24.
  18. "RAS Obituaries - Barbara Mary Middlehurst". Royal Astronomical Society. Retrieved 2019-06-24.
  19. "Astro-Cymru Update" Society for the History of Astronomy Bulletin (Autumn 2009): 4.
  20. "Astro-Cymru". Spacewatch. Retrieved 2019-06-24.
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