Benjamin Michael Zuckerman (born August 16, 1943) is an astrophysicist and an emeritus professor in the Department of Physics & Astronomy at

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

. His recent work focus primarily on formation and evolution of

planetary systems A planetary system is a set of gravitationally bound non- stellar objects in or out of orbit around a star or star system. Generally speaking, systems with one or more planets constitute a planetary system, although such systems may also cons ...

around various types of

stars A star is an astronomical object comprising a luminous spheroid of plasma held together by its gravity. The nearest star to Earth is the Sun. Many other stars are visible to the naked eye at night, but their immense distances from Earth ma ...

Education

Zuckerman completed two degrees in 1963, one in Physics and one in Aeronautic & Astronautics at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the ...

. He finished his PhD thesis in Astronomy in 1968 at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

Scientific publications

Since 1965, Zuckerman has published well over 200 refereed papers in journals such as ''

Astrophysical Journal ''The Astrophysical Journal'', often abbreviated ''ApJ'' (pronounced "ap jay") in references and speech, is a peer-reviewed scientific journal of astrophysics and astronomy, established in 1895 by American astronomers George Ellery Hale and Jame ...

'', ''

Nature Nature, in the broadest sense, is the physics, physical world or universe. "Nature" can refer to the phenomenon, phenomena of the physical world, and also to life in general. The study of nature is a large, if not the only, part of science. ...

'', ''

Astronomy & Astrophysics ''Astronomy & Astrophysics'' is a monthly peer-reviewed scientific journal covering theoretical, observational, and instrumental astronomy and astrophysics. The journal is run by a Board of Directors representing 27 sponsoring countries plus a re ...

'' and ''

Science Science is a systematic endeavor that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe. Science may be as old as the human species, and some of the earliest archeological evidence for ...

'', of which he was first author for close to 100. He also produced a number of review papers in Annual review of astronomy and astrophysics. In 2001, he participated in the Encyclopedia of Astronomy and Astrophysics. Zuckerman was co-author of a 2008 paper reporting first directly-imaged multiplanetary system (arguably, the first directly imaged planets) around

HR 8799 HR 8799 is a roughly 30 million-year-old main-sequence star located away from Earth in the constellation of Pegasus. It has roughly 1.5 times the Sun's mass and 4.9 times its luminosity. It is part of a system that also c ...

and a 2010 paper discovering a fourth imaged planet in the system:

HR 8799 e HR 8799 e is a large exoplanet, orbiting the star HR 8799, which lies 129 light-years from Earth. This gas giant is between 5 and 10 times the mass of Jupiter, the largest planet in the Planetary System. Due to their young age and high temperat ...

Outreach work

In 1982, Zuckerman co-edited a book called ''Extraterrestrials, Where Are They'' with Michael Hart. The book was republished in 1995. He also co-authored the book ''The Origin and Evolution of the Universe'' with Matthew A. Malkan. In 1996, he also wrote with David Jefferson the book ''Human Population and the Environmental Crisis'', following a public symposium of the same name held at UCLA in October 1993.Description of the book
on AbeBooks website.

References

External links

Benjamin Zuckerman webpage
on

Department of Physics and Astronomy website
Benjamin Zuckerman’s Astronomy Web Page

Benjamin Zuckerman's page
on

NASA Astrobiology Institute The NASA Astrobiology Institute (NAI) was established in 1998 by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) "to develop the field of astrobiology and provide a scientific framework for flight missions." In December 2019 the institute' ...

website
Benjamin Zuckerman publication list
on

NASA ADS The SAO/NASA Astrophysics Data System (ADS) is an online database of over 16 million astronomy and physics papers from both peer reviewed and non-peer reviewed sources. Abstracts are available free online for almost all articles, and full scanned a ...

{{DEFAULTSORT:Zuckerman, Benjamin Living people MIT Department of Physics alumni Harvard Graduate School of Arts and Sciences alumni American astrophysicists University of California, Los Angeles faculty 1943 births MIT School of Engineering alumni