50 Facts About Otto Struve

Otto Lyudvigovich Struve was a Russian-American astronomer of Baltic German origin.

Otto Struve served as director of Yerkes, McDonald, Leuschner and National Radio Astronomy Observatories and is credited with raising worldwide prestige and building schools of talented scientists at Yerkes and McDonald observatories.

Otto Struve's research was mostly focused on binary and variable stars, stellar rotation and interstellar matter.

Otto Struve was one of the few eminent astronomers in the pre-Space Age era to publicly express a belief that extraterrestrial intelligence was abundant, and so was an early advocate of the search for extraterrestrial life.

Otto Struve's father was a member of the extensive political and scientific Struve family of Baltic Germans who were prominent in 19th-century Russia.

In June 1914, Otto Struve took part in preparations for observation of a total solar eclipse and later used that experience and results for his master's degree work defended in 1919 at Kharkov University.

Otto Struve entered the Imperial Kharkov University in 1915, at the time of political unrest and wars in Russia.

Otto Struve passed an accelerated training program, and in February 1917, was sent to the Turkish front.

Otto Struve was later invited several times to conferences in the Soviet Union, but for various reasons declined to attend.

Otto Struve wrote to his uncle Hermann Otto Struve in Germany for assistance, without knowing that his uncle had died a few months earlier, on August 12,1920.

However, the widow of Hermann, Eva Otto Struve, contacted Paul Guthnick, her late husband's successor at the Berlin-Babelsberg Observatory.

Otto Struve received a reply on January 27,1921, where Frost promised to do his best.

On March 2,1921, Frost wrote to Otto Struve, offering him a position at Yerkes.

Otto Struve acknowledged that he had no experience in spectral astrophysics.

In late August 1921, Otto Struve received his visa and travel tickets at the US Consulate in Turkey.

Otto Struve was met there, put on the train, and two days later arrived in Chicago.

In late 1921, Otto Struve began working as a stellar spectroscopy assistant at Yerkes with a monthly salary of $75, starting with taking a training course.

The observatory was in decline and Otto Struve was alone in class.

Otto Struve proved to be a quick learner and talented scientist.

Otto Struve was spending more time with observations than anyone at Yerkes, trying every telescope available there, and making weather observations at Williams Bay.

Otto Struve then became an instructor, assistant professor and full professor at the university.

Otto Struve's rapid promotion was again assisted by Frost, who used job-offer letters from other observatories to Struve as proof that Struve was a highly valued scientist who must be kept at the University of Chicago.

Between 1932 and 1947, Otto Struve headed Yerkes Observatory; from 1939 to 1950 he acted as a founding director of the McDonald Observatory, and from July 1,1952, to 1962 served as the first director of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory at University of Virginia.

Otto Struve applied for and won a Guggenheim Fellowship to cover his travel to, and living expenses in, Cambridge.

Otto Struve was a highly successful administrator who brought fame to Yerkes Observatory and rebuilt the astronomy department of the University of Chicago.

Otto Struve used to arrive first and leave last from the observatory, taking notes on working hours of staff which he then used in his bureaucratic moves.

Otto Struve spent extraordinary efforts defending and justifying each case, and those efforts paid off in building the scientific school at Yerkes and University of Chicago.

In 1947, Otto Struve resigned as director of Yerkes Observatory and became chairman of the astronomy department at Berkeley and director of the Leuschner Observatory.

Otto Struve was succeeded by Kuiper at Yerkes; their relations were strained at times because of Struve's tendencies to keep control of Yerkes management.

One reason for Otto Struve's move to Berkeley was his tiredness of bureaucracy.

In 1937, Otto Struve discovered a phenomenon which was later named the Otto Struve-Sahade effect, that is the apparent weakness of lines of the secondary star in massive binary stars when the secondary is receding.

Otto Struve worked on the turbulence of stellar atmosphere and expanding shells around stars.

The reason for this, claimed Otto Struve, was that they were surrounded by planetary systems which had carried away much of the stars' original angular momentum.

Otto Struve had a younger brother and two sisters, all of whom died in Russia in their youth: Werner, Yadviga and Elizabeth.

On May 25,1925, Otto Struve married Mary Martha Lanning, who considered herself a musician but worked as a secretary at Yerkes.

Lanning was slightly older than Otto Struve and had been previously married.

On October 26,1927, Otto Struve became a naturalized US citizen.

Otto Struve was suffering from hepatitis, first contracted back in Russia and Turkey.

In 1956, while using a telescope at Mount Wilson, Otto Struve had a bad fall, breaking several ribs and cracking two vertebrae.

Otto Struve was hospitalized for about two months and had to wear a body cast for a month after recovery.

Otto Struve was permanently hospitalized around 1963 and died on April 6,1963, in Berkeley.

Otto Struve's mother died on October 1,1964, at the age of ninety.

In 1925, Otto Struve met his cousin, the astronomer Georg Hermann Otto Struve at the Lick Observatory.

Otto Struve was often described as a big and intimidating man.

Otto Struve was first to arrive at the observatory, often working until late evening in the office, and then spending nights with a telescope.

Otto Struve was hardly a good teacher: because of his devotion to research and frequent trips, he missed up to two-thirds of his lectures.

Otto Struve was elected to both the United States National Academy of Sciences and the American Philosophical Society in 1937.

Otto Struve was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1942.

The 82-inch telescope which Struve used in his research at McDonald Observatory was named after him in 1966, three years after his death, whereas the asteroid 2227 Otto Struve bore Struve's name from its discovery on October 13,1955.

In 1925, Otto Struve began reviewing articles for the Astrophysical Journal and from 1932 to 1947, acted as its Editor in Chief.