Christopher Aikman is a Canadian astrophysicist who spent most of his career (from 1968 to 2000) at the

Dominion Astrophysical Observatory The Dominion Astrophysical Observatory, located on Observatory Hill, in Saanich, British Columbia, was completed in 1918 by the Canadian government. The Dominion architect responsible for the building was Edgar Lewis Horwood. The main instrumen ...

National Research Council Canada The National Research Council Canada (NRC; french: Conseil national de recherches Canada) is the primary national agency of the Government of Canada dedicated to science and technology research & development. It is the largest federal research ...

Saanich, British Columbia Saanich ( ) is a district municipality on Vancouver Island in British Columbia, within the Greater Victoria area. The population was 117,735 at the 2021 census, making it the most populous municipality in the Capital Regional District and V ...

, Canada.

Early life and education

An early interest in astronomy led Aikman to join the

Royal Astronomical Society of Canada Royal may refer to: People * Royal (name), a list of people with either the surname or given name * A member of a royal family Places United States * Royal, Arkansas, an unincorporated community * Royal, Illinois, a village * Royal, Iowa, a ci ...

Quebec Centre in 1958, at the age of 15. He received a B.Sc. from

Bishop's University Bishop's University (french: Université Bishop's) is a small English-language Liberal arts college, liberal arts university in Lennoxville, a borough of Sherbrooke, Quebec, Canada. The founder of the institution was the Anglican Diocese of Quebe ...

in 1965 and a M.Sc. from the

University of Toronto The University of Toronto (UToronto or U of T) is a public research university in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, located on the grounds that surround Queen's Park. It was founded by royal charter in 1827 as King's College, the first institution ...

in 1968. His thesis was based on

microwave Microwave is a form of electromagnetic radiation with wavelengths ranging from about one meter to one millimeter corresponding to frequencies between 300 MHz and 300 GHz respectively. Different sources define different frequency ran ...

surveys of selected emission nebulae in the northern

Milky Way The Milky Way is the galaxy that includes our Solar System, with the name describing the galaxy's appearance from Earth: a hazy band of light seen in the night sky formed from stars that cannot be individually distinguished by the naked eye ...

made with the 46-m radio telescope of the

Algonquin Radio Observatory The Algonquin Radio Observatory (ARO) is a radio observatory located in Algonquin Provincial Park in Ontario, Canada. It opened in 1959 in order to host a number of the National Research Council of Canada's (NRC) ongoing experiments in a more ra ...

, including the emission nebula IC1795. This revealed what is perhaps the youngest stellar object in the Galaxy, namely W3(OH), a cocoon star invisible at optical wavelengths but surrounded by a rapidly expanding ultracompact HII region, all within a dense obscuring dust shell. W3(OH) had previously been located in 1966 as the source of the first radio-identified

astrophysical maser An astrophysical maser is a naturally occurring source of stimulated spectral line emission, typically in the microwave portion of the electromagnetic spectrum. This emission may arise in molecular clouds, comets, planetary atmospheres, stellar at ...

Career

In 1968 he joined the staff of the Dominion Astrophysical Observatory as scientific assistant to the Director. His initial research was on the

spectroscopy Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets the electromagnetic spectra that result from the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter as a function of the wavelength or frequency of the radiation. Matter wa ...

of comets, and of chemically peculiar stars whose surface compositions differ markedly from that of the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

, with the aim of understanding the origin of their anomalies. This led to the discovery of a chemically peculiar star, HR 7775, having extraordinary enhancements of the element gold in its atmosphere. A twenty-year study of the B6III star 3 Vulpeculae by D. P. Hube and Aikman led to the early recognition of a group of hot, variable stars now known as

slowly pulsating B-type star A slowly pulsating B-type star (SPB), formerly known as a 53 Persei variable, is a type of pulsating variable star. They may also be termed a long-period pulsating B star (LPB). As the name implies, they are main-sequence stars of spectral type B2 ...

s (SPB stars). From 1991, he conducted a program of tracking Earth approaching asteroids with the historic telescope built by John S. Plaskett, but the project was cancelled in 1997. He was the Canadian representative on the

Spaceguard The term Spaceguard loosely refers to a number of efforts to discover, catalogue, and study near-Earth objects (NEO), especially those that may impact Earth (potentially hazardous objects). Asteroids are discovered by telescopes which repeated ...

Foundation, a group concerned with assessing 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. ...

impact threat to

Earth Earth is the third planet from the Sun and the only astronomical object known to harbor life. While large volumes of water can be found throughout the Solar System, only Earth sustains liquid surface water. About 71% of Earth's surfa ...

. An incidental product of this research was the discovery of four asteroids between 1994 and 1998 (as credited by the

Minor Planet Center The Minor Planet Center (MPC) is the official body for observing and reporting on minor planets under the auspices of the International Astronomical Union (IAU). Founded in 1947, it operates at the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory. Function ...

References

Selected publications

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Aikman, Chris 1943 births 20th-century Canadian astronomers Living people Discoverers of asteroids Scientists from British Columbia Bishop's University alumni University of Toronto alumni Canadian astrophysicists 21st-century Canadian astronomers Scientists from Quebec