Aleksandr Leonidovich Zaitsev (russian: Александр Леонидович Зайцев; 19 May 1945 – 29 November 2021) was a Russian and Soviet radio engineer and astronomer from Fryazino. He worked on radar astronomy devices,

near-Earth asteroid A near-Earth object (NEO) is any small Solar System body whose orbit brings it into proximity with Earth. By convention, a Solar System body is a NEO if its closest approach to the Sun (perihelion) is less than 1.3 astronomical units (AU). ...

radar research, and SETI.

Education

Zaitsev received his M.Sc. degree in radio engineering from the Moscow Mining University in 1967 and his Ph.D. (1981) and his postdoctoral lecture qualification (1997) in radar astronomy from the Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics, Russian Academy of Science in Moscow. He was a member of the

Space Guard Foundation The Spaceguard Foundation (SGF) is a private organization based in Frascati, Italy, whose purpose is to study, discover and observe near-Earth objects (NEO) and protect the Earth from the possible threat of their collision. The foundation i ...

, the SETI League, and

The European Radio Astronomy Club The European Radio Astronomy club (ERAC) is Europe's only group coordinating the work of radio astronomers to jointly use radio waves to study the universe at radio wavelengths. It was founded in 1995 by Peter Wright, who had the idea of wri ...

(E.R.A.C.).

Career

Zaitsev was the chief scientist at the Russian Academy of Science's Institute of Radio Engineering and Electronics. He headed the group transmitting Team Encounter's interstellar messages using the Yevpatoria (Evpatoria) Deep Space Center (EDSC). Zaitsev was also serving as the SETI League's Regional Coordinator for Russia.SETI League: http://www.setileague.org Zaitsev's career has focused on three main topics: the theory, the design and implementation of radar devices used in the study of Venus, Mars, and

Mercury Mercury commonly refers to: * Mercury (planet), the nearest planet to the Sun * Mercury (element), a metallic chemical element with the symbol Hg * Mercury (mythology), a Roman god Mercury or The Mercury may also refer to: Companies * Merc ...

;

radar research; and interstellar radio messaging, his later field of research. He retired in 2013. Zaitsev observed the

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet of the inner Solar System. Sizes and shapes of asteroids vary significantly, ranging from 1-meter rocks to a dwarf planet almost 1000 km in diameter; they are rocky, metallic or icy bodies with no atmosphere. ...

4179 Toutatis 4179 Toutatis, provisional designation , is an elongated, stony asteroid and slow rotator, classified as a near-Earth object and potentially hazardous asteroid of the Apollo asteroid and Alinda asteroid groups, approximately 2.5 kilometers in d ...

in December 1992 using the 70-m Yevpatorian Planetary Radar in Crimea ( Ukraine), as a sounding signal transmitter, and the 100-m

radio telescope A radio telescope is a specialized antenna and radio receiver used to detect radio waves from astronomical radio sources in the sky. Radio telescopes are the main observing instrument used in radio astronomy, which studies the radio frequency ...

Effelsberg The Effelsberg 100-m Radio Telescope is a radio telescope in the Ahr Hills (part of the Eifel) in Bad Münstereifel, Germany. For 29 years the Effelsberg Radio Telescope was the largest fully steerable radio telescope on Earth, surpassing the ...

, Germany, as a receiver of the

's radar echo. In June 1995, Zaitsev was responsible for initiating the world's first intercontinental radar astronomy experiment; the radar groups participating in this experiment were led by

Steven Ostro Steven Jeffrey Ostro (March 9, 1946 – December 15, 2008) was an American scientist specializing in radar astronomy. He worked at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Ostro led radar observations of numerous asteroids, as well as the moons of Jupi ...

JPL The Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center in the City of La Cañada Flintridge, California, United States. Founded in the 1930s by Caltech researchers, JPL is owned by NASA an ...

, Zaitsev in Yevpatoria, and

Yasuhiro Koyama Yasuhiro is a masculine Japanese given name. Possible writings Yasuhiro can be written using many different combinations of kanji characters. Here are some examples: *康弘, "healthy, vast" *康広, "healthy, wide" *康寛, "healthy, generosit ...

in Kashima,

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. Ostro's group transmitted and received using the Goldstone site of the Deep Space Network, while Zaitsev received using the Yevpatoria site and Koyama's group received at Kashima. The target asteroid, 6489 Golevka, was later named for the participating observatories (GOL-EV-KA or GOLdstone-EVpatoria-KAshima). Zaitsev has also conducted work on using radar to determine the composition of asteroids and planetary bodies. Zaitsev supervised the

transmission Transmission may refer to: Medicine, science and technology * Power transmission ** Electric power transmission ** Propulsion transmission, technology allowing controlled application of power *** Automatic transmission *** Manual transmission *** ...

of the 1999 and 2003 Cosmic Calls from Yevpatoria Planetary Radar (EPR). Under his leadership, a youth group in Moscow composed and broadcast a ' Teen Age Message to ETI'. Zaitsev proposed three-section structure of interstellar radio messages, coined the acronym METI (Messaging to Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence) and the phrase 'SETI paradox', which refers to an apparent "paradox" where two distant civilizations capable of interstellar communication will always remain silent unless one of them contacts the other first, resulting in a deadlock of silence. In 2005, in article
The Drake Equation: Adding a METI Factor
he suggested that a high technology is not enough for establishing contact with Aliens because appropriate behavior directed to practical realization of sending signals is necessary too. In 2006–2011, Zaitsev was one of the contributors to the * ARTE's German-French TV documentation "Die Außerirdischen" ("Calling All Aliens") by Christian Schidlowski; * Russian documentary "Overcome the Great Silence" by Vladislav Sidorov, * Dutch documentary "Calling E.T." by Prosper de Roos, * Dutch documentary "Alien Bits" by Prosper de Roos. Zaitsev died on 29 November 2021.

Awards

* 1985, USSR State Prize in Science. * 1989, the ''Koroliov Medal of the Soviet Space Federation''. * In 1995,

6075 Zajtsev 6 (six) is the natural number following 5 and preceding 7. It is a composite number and the smallest perfect number. In mathematics Six is the smallest positive integer which is neither a square number nor a prime number; it is the second small ...

, an

in the outer regions of the main-belt, was named in his honour by the discovering astronomer, Nikolai Chernykh, following a suggestion by the Institute of Theoretical Astronomy. * 1997, the ''Tsiolkovsky Medal of the Russian Space Federation''. * 2003, Ukrainian jubilee medal ''2500th Anniversary of Evpatoria''.

References

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Zaitsev, Aleksandr 1945 births 2021 deaths Russian astronomers Soviet astronomers Search for extraterrestrial intelligence Interstellar messages People associated with radar People from Shchyolkovsky District