Malcolm Hartley (born 15 February 1947,

Bury, Greater Manchester Bury ( ) is a market town on the River Irwell in Greater Manchester, England. Metropolitan Borough of Bury is administered from the town, which had an estimated population of 78,723 in 2015. The town is within the historic county boundarie ...

) is an English-born

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 a discoverer of

minor planet According to the International Astronomical Union (IAU), a minor planet is an astronomical object in direct orbit around the Sun that is exclusively classified as neither a planet nor a comet. Before 2006, the IAU officially used the term ''minor ...

s and

comet A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena ar ...

s, who works with the

UK Schmidt Telescope The UK Schmidt Telescope (UKST) is a 1.24 metre Schmidt telescope operated by the Australian Astronomical Observatory (formerly the Anglo-Australian Observatory); it is located adjacent to the 3.9 metre Anglo-Australian Telescope at S ...

at the

Siding Spring Observatory Siding Spring Observatory near Coonabarabran, New South Wales, Australia, part of the Research School of Astronomy & Astrophysics (RSAA) at the Australian National University (ANU), incorporates the Anglo-Australian Telescope along with a coll ...

in Australia.

Career

Hartley is best known for his discovery and co-discovery of 10 comets since the 1980s, among them 79P/du Toit-Hartley,

80P/Peters–Hartley 80P/Peters–Hartley is a periodic comet in the Solar System with an orbital period of 8.12 years. It was originally discovered by Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters of Capodimonte Observatory, Naples, Italy. There was insufficient data to ac ...

, 100P/Hartley, 110P/Hartley, and C/1984 W2. Unfortunately for Hartley, in 2002, "the Anglo-Australian Observatory retrofitted its Schmidt to perform multi-object spectroscopy, essentially halting all

astrophotography Astrophotography, also known as astronomical imaging, is the photography or imaging of astronomical objects, celestial events, or areas of the night sky. The first photograph of an astronomical object (the Moon) was taken in 1840, but it was no ...

with the telescope and ending any future possibility for comet discovery". In November 2010, he visited NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory facility in California to witness the ''

EPOXI ''EPOXI'' was a compilation of NASA Discovery program missions led by the University of Maryland and principal investigator Michael A'Hearn, with co-operation from the Jet Propulsion Laboratory and Ball Aerospace. ''EPOXI'' uses the '' Deep Impa ...

'' mission flyby of comet

103P/Hartley Comet Hartley 2, designated as 103P/Hartley by the Minor Planet Center, is a small periodic comet with an orbital period of 6.46 years. It was discovered by Malcolm Hartley in 1986 at the Schmidt Telescope Unit, Siding Spring Observatory, Au ...

on 4 November 2010. Hartley is 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 ...

with the discovery of 3 asteroids made at the Siding Spring Observatory between 1996 and 1998, with and being

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). ...

s of the Amor group of asteroids.

Awards and honours

The outer main-belt asteroid 4768 Hartley was named in his honour, being deputy astronomer of the

at Siding Spring, with which this minor planet was discovered. The official was published by the

on 27 June 1991 ().

References

External links

Meet Malcolm Hartley, Discoverer of Comet Hartley 2
STARDUST-NExT, Jet Propulsion Laboratory *
Mmbenya.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Hartley, Malcolm 1947 births 21st-century Australian astronomers 20th-century British astronomers * Discoverers of comets Discoverers of minor planets Living people

Career

Awards and honours

See also

References

External links