Charles Alexander Shain (6 February 1922 – 11 February 1960) was an Australian pioneer in the field of

radio astronomy Radio astronomy is a subfield of astronomy that studies celestial objects at radio frequencies. The first detection of radio waves from an astronomical object was in 1933, when Karl Jansky at Bell Telephone Laboratories reported radiation coming f ...

. Shain entered the

University of Melbourne The University of Melbourne is a public research university located in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1853, it is Australia's second oldest university and the oldest in Victoria. Its main campus is located in Parkville, an inner suburb nor ...

in 1940, studying physics, where he won a non-resident Exhibition to

Trinity College Trinity College may refer to: Australia * Trinity Anglican College, an Anglican coeducational primary and secondary school in , New South Wales * Trinity Catholic College, Auburn, a coeducational school in the inner-western suburbs of Sydney, New ...

. In 1942, for his final year, he moved into residence at Trinity on a Council Minor Scholarship, graduating at the end of the year with a BSc."Obituaries",
The Fleur-de-Lys
', Nov. 1960, p. 35. With Australia at war, Shain joined the

Second Australian Imperial Force The Second Australian Imperial Force (2nd AIF, or Second AIF) was the name given to the volunteer expeditionary force of the Australian Army in the Second World War. It was formed following the declaration of war on Nazi Germany, with an initial ...

, but was discharged in 1943 on medical grounds. He then worked on radio countermeasures at the Australian

Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) is an Australian Government agency responsible for scientific research. CSIRO works with leading organisations around the world. From its headquarters in Canberra, CSIRO ...

(CSIRO) Radiophysics Laboratory. Following the war, he entered the field of decametre

. He was a pioneer in the study of absorption in

H II region An H II region or HII region is a region of interstellar atomic hydrogen that is ionized. It is typically in a molecular cloud of partially ionized gas in which star formation has recently taken place, with a size ranging from one to hundreds ...

s as well as the effects of the

ionosphere The ionosphere () is the ionized part of the upper atmosphere of Earth, from about to above sea level, a region that includes the thermosphere and parts of the mesosphere and exosphere. The ionosphere is ionized by solar radiation. It plays an ...

on radio signals. He died of cancer, leaving behind a wife and three children.

References

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* 1922 births 1960 deaths People educated at Trinity College (University of Melbourne) 20th-century Australian astronomers {{astronomer-stub