Walter Frederick Gale (27 November 1865 – 1 June 1945) was an Australian

banker A bank is a financial institution that accepts Deposit account, deposits from the public and creates a demand deposit while simultaneously making loans. Lending activities can be directly performed by the bank or indirectly through capital m ...

. Gale was born in Paddington, Sydney, New South Wales. He had a strong interest in

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 ...

and built his first

telescope A telescope is a device used to observe distant objects by their emission, absorption, or reflection of electromagnetic radiation. Originally meaning only an optical instrument using lenses, curved mirrors, or a combination of both to observe ...

in 1884. He discovered a number of

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, including the lost periodic comet 34D/Gale. He also discovered five southern

double star In observational astronomy, a double star or visual double is a pair of stars that appear close to each other as viewed from Earth, especially with the aid of optical telescopes. This occurs because the pair either forms a binary star (i.e. a bi ...

s with the prefix GLE, and several dark sky objects, including the planetary nebula,

IC 5148 Nicknamed the Spare-tyre nebula, IC 5148 is a planetary nebula located around 1 degree west of Lambda Gruis in the constellation of Grus (The Crane). It was discovered by Australian amateur astronomer Walter Gale in 1894. Around 3000 light-yea ...

in Grus. In 1892, he described oases and

canals on Mars During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, it was erroneously believed that there were "canals" on the planet Mars. These were a network of long straight lines in the equatorial regions from 60° north to 60° south latitude on Mars, observed ...

. He was awarded the

Jackson-Gwilt Medal The Jackson-Gwilt Medal is an award that has been issued by the Royal Astronomical Society (RAS) since 1897. The original criteria were for the invention, improvement, or development of astronomical instrumentation or techniques; for achievement ...

of the

Royal Astronomical Society (Whatever shines should be observed) , predecessor = , successor = , formation = , founder = , extinction = , merger = , merged = , type = NGO ...

in 1935 for "discoveries of comets and his work for astronomy in

New South Wales ) , nickname = , image_map = New South Wales in Australia.svg , map_caption = Location of New South Wales in AustraliaCoordinates: , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name = Australia , established_title = Before federation , es ...

." A crater on Mars,

Gale Crater Gale is a crater, and probable dry lake, at in the northwestern part of the Aeolis quadrangle on Mars. It is in diameter and estimated to be about 3.5–3.8 billion years old. The crater was named after Walter Frederick Gale, an amateur ast ...

, was named in his honour. It was selected as the 2012 landing site for the

Curiosity Rover ''Curiosity'' is a car-sized Mars rover designed to explore the Gale crater on Mars as part of NASA's Mars Science Laboratory (MSL) mission. ''Curiosity'' was launched from Cape Canaveral (CCAFS) on November 26, 2011, at 15:02:00 UTC and lan ...

References

External links

Gale on the Australian Dictionary of Biography
1865 births 1945 deaths 19th-century Australian astronomers Amateur astronomers 20th-century Australian astronomers People from Sydney Discoverers of comets {{Australia-scientist-stub