13 Facts About Maarten Schmidt

Maarten Schmidt was a Dutch-born American astronomer who first measured the distances of quasars.

Maarten Schmidt was the first astronomer to identify a quasar, and so was pictured on the March cover of Time magazine in 1966.

Maarten Schmidt's father, Wilhelm, worked as an accountant for the Dutch government; his mother, Annie Wilhelmina, was a housewife.

Maarten Schmidt studied math and physics at the University of Groningen, graduating with a bachelor's degree in 1949 before obtaining a master's degree the following year.

Maarten Schmidt was awarded a Doctor of Philosophy from Leiden Observatory in 1956.

Maarten Schmidt returned briefly to the Netherlands, but ultimately emigrated to the US on a permanent basis in 1959 to work at the California Institute of Technology.

Maarten Schmidt later began a study of the light spectra of radio sources.

In 1963, using the 200-inch reflector telescope at the Palomar Observatory, Maarten Schmidt identified the visible object corresponding to one of these radio sources, known as 3C 273 and studied its spectrum.

Maarten Schmidt termed 3C 273 a "quasi-stellar" object or quasar; thousands have since been identified.

Maarten Schmidt was featured on the cover of Time magazine in March 1966.

Maarten Schmidt was later a co-recipient, with Donald Lynden-Bell, of the inaugural Kavli Prize for Astrophysics in 2008.

Maarten Schmidt lectured a total of 33 times at the Summer Science Program.

Maarten Schmidt died on 17 September 2022 at his home in Fresno, California.