Peter Nilson (17 October 1937 – 8 March 1998) was a

Swedish Swedish or ' may refer to: Anything from or related to Sweden, a country in Northern Europe. Or, specifically: * Swedish language, a North Germanic language spoken primarily in Sweden and Finland ** Swedish alphabet, the official alphabet used by ...

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 novelist. Active at

Uppsala University Uppsala University ( sv, Uppsala universitet) is a public university, public research university in Uppsala, Sweden. Founded in 1477, it is the List of universities in Sweden, oldest university in Sweden and the Nordic countries still in opera ...

, he compiled a catalogue of

galaxies A galaxy is a system of stars, stellar remnants, interstellar gas, dust, dark matter, bound together by gravity. The word is derived from the Greek ' (), literally 'milky', a reference to the Milky Way galaxy that contains the Solar System. ...

containing nearly 13,000 entries. He was appreciated for a number of essay books (primarily about science) and for a number of

science fiction Science fiction (sometimes shortened to Sci-Fi or SF) is a genre of speculative fiction which typically deals with imaginative and futuristic concepts such as advanced science and technology, space exploration, time travel, parallel unive ...

novels like ''Rymdväktaren'', or "The Space Guardian" and ''Nyaga''. He was born in the

Småland Småland () is a historical province () in southern Sweden. Småland borders Blekinge, Scania, Halland, Västergötland, Östergötland and the island Öland in the Baltic Sea. The name Småland literally means ''Small Lands''. The Latinized fo ...

ian village of Näsby and under the early teens a farmer, but science, with its celebrities such as

Charles Darwin Charles Robert Darwin ( ; 12 February 1809 – 19 April 1882) was an English naturalist, geologist, and biologist, widely known for his contributions to evolutionary biology. His proposition that all species of life have descended fr ...

and

Albert Einstein Albert Einstein ( ; ; 14 March 1879 – 18 April 1955) was a German-born theoretical physicist, widely acknowledged to be one of the greatest and most influential physicists of all time. Einstein is best known for developing the theory ...

made such an impression on him, as to motivate him to accomplish college studies by letter correspondence. In the early 1960s he began his studies in

, initially in

mathematics Mathematics is an area of knowledge that includes the topics of numbers, formulas and related structures, shapes and the spaces in which they are contained, and quantities and their changes. These topics are represented in modern mathematics ...

, and thereafter

theoretical physics Theoretical physics is a branch of physics that employs mathematical models and abstractions of physical objects and systems to rationalize, explain and predict natural phenomena. This is in contrast to experimental physics, which uses experim ...

aesthetics Aesthetics, or esthetics, is a branch of philosophy that deals with the nature of beauty and taste, as well as the philosophy of art (its own area of philosophy that comes out of aesthetics). It examines aesthetic values, often expressed thr ...

history of ideas Intellectual history (also the history of ideas) is the study of the history of human thought and of intellectuals, people who conceptualize, discuss, write about, and concern themselves with ideas. The investigative premise of intellectual histor ...

and

astronomy Astronomy () is a natural science that studies astronomical object, celestial objects and phenomena. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and chronology of the Universe, evolution. Objects of interest ...

. He was elected a member of the

Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences ( sv, Kungliga Vetenskapsakademien) is one of the Swedish Royal Academies, royal academies of Sweden. Founded on 2 June 1739, it is an independent, non-governmental scientific organization that takes special ...

in 1993.

Works

*''Lysande stjärnor'' (1970) *''Uppsala General Catalogue of Galaxies'' (1973) *''Upptäckten av universum'' (1975) *''Himlavalvets sällsamheter'' (1977) *''Trollkarlen'' (1979) *''Främmande världar'' (1980) *'' Arken'' (1982) *''Mitt i labyrinten'' (1983) *'' Guldspiken'' (1985) *''Avgrundsbok'' (1987) *''Äventyret'' (1989) *''Messias med träbenet'' (1990) *''Stjärnvägar'' (1991) *''Rymdljus'' (1992) *''Solvindar'' (1993) *''Hem till jorden'' (1994) *'' Rymdväktaren'' (1995) *'' Nyaga'' (1996) *''Den gamla byn'' (1997). Illustrated by Björn Gidstam *''Ljuden från kosmos'' (2000,

posthum Posthum is a black metal band from Nannestad, Norway. The band was founded in 2004 by Jon Kristian Skare (guitar, bass, vocals) and Morten Edseth (drums). The music is more to the ambient/progressive side of the genre than the aggressive, and can ...

)

References

1937 births 1998 deaths Swedish-language writers 20th-century Swedish astronomers Uppsala University alumni Members of the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences {{Europe-astronomer-stub