Carl Gustav Witt (29 October 1866 – 3 January 1946) was a German
astronomer
An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses their studies on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. They observe astronomical objects such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, g ...
and discoverer of two
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.
...
s who worked at the
Berlin Urania Observatory, a popular observatory of the Urania astronomical association of Berlin.
He wrote a doctoral thesis under the direction of
Julius Bauschinger
Julius Bauschinger (January 28, 1860 – January 21, 1934) was a German astronomer.
Biography
Julius Bauschinger was born in Fürth, the son of the physicist Johann Bauschinger. He studied at the Universities of Munich and Berlin, graduating un ...
.
Witt discovered two asteroids, most notably
433 Eros
Eros (minor planet designation: (433) Eros), provisional designation is a stony asteroid of the Amor group and the first discovered and second-largest near-Earth object with an elongated shape and a mean diameter of approximately . Visi ...
, the first asteroid with a male name, and the first known
near-Earth object
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). ...
.
His first minor planet discovery was the main-belt asteroid
422 Berolina, that bears the Latin name of his adoptive city.
The minor planet
2732 Witt
2732 Witt, provisional designation , is a bright asteroid and namesake of the Witt family located in the central regions of the asteroid belt, approximately in diameter. It was discovered on 19 March 1926, by German astronomer Max Wolf at the ...
– an
A-type asteroid A-type asteroids are relatively uncommon inner-belt asteroids that have a strong, broad 1 micrometre, μm olivine feature and a very reddish spectrum shortwards of 0.7 μm. They are thought to come from the completely differentiated Mantle (geo ...
from the
main-belt
The asteroid belt is a torus-shaped region in the Solar System, located roughly between the orbits of the planets Jupiter and Mars. It contains a great many solid, irregularly shaped bodies, of many sizes, but much smaller than planets, called ...
, discovered by
Max Wolf
Maximilian Franz Joseph Cornelius Wolf (21 June 1863 – 3 October 1932) was a German astronomer and a pioneer in the field of astrophotography. He was the chairman of astronomy at the University of Heidelberg and director of the Heidelberg-Kà ...
at
Heidelberg Observatory
Heidelberg (; Palatine German: ') is a city in the German state of Baden-Württemberg, situated on the river Neckar in south-west Germany. As of the 2016 census, its population was 159,914, of which roughly a quarter consisted of students.
...
in 1926 – was named in his memory by American astronomer and
MPC's longtime director,
Brian G. Marsden
Brian Geoffrey Marsden (5 August 1937 – 18 November 2010) was a British astronomer and the longtime director of the Minor Planet Center (MPC) at the Center for Astrophysics Harvard & Smithsonian (director emeritus from 2006 to 2010).
...
.
Naming citation was published on 22 September 1983 ().
References
1866 births
1946 deaths
Discoverers of asteroids
20th-century German astronomers
19th-century German astronomers
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