Fényi Gyula (8 January 1845 – 21 December 1927) was a Hungarian

Jesuit The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rom ...

and

astronomer An astronomer is a scientist in the field of astronomy who focuses on a specific question or field outside the scope of Earth. Astronomers observe astronomical objects, such as stars, planets, natural satellite, moons, comets and galaxy, galax ...

. He is also known by the name ''P. Julius Fenyi SJ''. He is best known for his work on the

Sun The Sun is the star at the centre of the Solar System. It is a massive, nearly perfect sphere of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core, radiating the energy from its surface mainly as visible light a ...

and leading the Haynald Observatory to be a leader in solar studies.

Life

He was born in

Sopron Sopron (; , ) is a city in Hungary on the Austrian border, near Lake Neusiedl/Lake Fertő. History Ancient times-13th century In the Iron Age a hilltop settlement with a burial ground existed in the neighbourhood of Sopron-Várhely. When ...

Hungary Hungary is a landlocked country in Central Europe. Spanning much of the Pannonian Basin, Carpathian Basin, it is bordered by Slovakia to the north, Ukraine to the northeast, Romania to the east and southeast, Serbia to the south, Croatia and ...

, the eleventh child of a merchant family. In 1864 he became a member of the

Society of Jesus The Society of Jesus (; abbreviation: S.J. or SJ), also known as the Jesuit Order or the Jesuits ( ; ), is a religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 ...

, and he was sent to

Kalocsa Kalocsa (; or ''Kalača''; or Калоча; ) is a town in Bács-Kiskun county, Hungary. It lies south of Budapest. It is situated in a marshy but highly productive district, near the left bank of the Danube River. Historically it had greater ...

where he would be an instructor of

chemistry Chemistry is the scientific study of the properties and behavior of matter. It is a physical science within the natural sciences that studies the chemical elements that make up matter and chemical compound, compounds made of atoms, molecules a ...

mathematics Mathematics is a field of study that discovers and organizes methods, Mathematical theory, theories and theorems that are developed and Mathematical proof, proved for the needs of empirical sciences and mathematics itself. There are many ar ...

physics Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge whi ...

and the natural history of the world. He studied at the university at

Innsbruck Innsbruck (; ) is the capital of Tyrol (federal state), Tyrol and the List of cities and towns in Austria, fifth-largest city in Austria. On the Inn (river), River Inn, at its junction with the Wipptal, Wipp Valley, which provides access to the ...

beginning in 1874, where he trained in theology, mathematics and physics. After completing his studies in 1878, he would return to teaching and also serve as an assistant at the Haynald Observatory in

. In 1885 he became the director of the observatory, and would remain at this post until retiring due to poor health in 1913. He continued his astronomical observations even in retirement. Fényi Gyula was noted for his observations of the Sun, including

spectroscopic Spectroscopy is the field of study that measures and interprets electromagnetic spectra. In narrower contexts, spectroscopy is the precise study of color as generalized from visible light to all bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. Spectrosc ...

studies of solar

prominence In topography, prominence or relative height (also referred to as autonomous height, and shoulder drop in US English, and drop in British English) measures the height of a mountain or hill's summit relative to the lowest contour line encircling ...

s, as well as

sun spot Sun SPOT (Sun Small Programmable Object Technology) was a sensor node for a wireless sensor network developed by Sun Microsystems announced in 2007. The device used the IEEE 802.15.4 standard for its networking, and unlike other available sen ...

s. He was the first person to demonstrate a correlation between the number of solar prominences and the number of sun spots. Between 1880 until 1919 he assembled over 6,000 drawings of the Sun, all using the same instrument. (These drawings are archived at the Heliophysical Observatory, in

Debrecen Debrecen ( ; ; ; ) is Hungary's cities of Hungary, second-largest city, after Budapest, the regional centre of the Northern Great Plain Regions of Hungary, region and the seat of Hajdú-Bihar County. A city with county rights, it was the large ...

, Hungary.) He published over 200 scientific papers in several languages. In 1916 he was elected a corresponding member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences. The crater Fényi on the

Moon The Moon is Earth's only natural satellite. It Orbit of the Moon, orbits around Earth at Lunar distance, an average distance of (; about 30 times Earth diameter, Earth's diameter). The Moon rotation, rotates, with a rotation period (lunar ...

and

asteroid An asteroid is a minor planet—an object larger than a meteoroid that is neither a planet nor an identified comet—that orbits within the Solar System#Inner Solar System, inner Solar System or is co-orbital with Jupiter (Trojan asteroids). As ...

115254 Fényi are named after him.

References

External links

Short biography of Julius Fenyi
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fenyi, Gyula 1845 births 1927 deaths 19th-century Hungarian astronomers 20th-century Hungarian astronomers 20th-century Hungarian Jesuits Catholic clergy scientists Members of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences Jesuit scientists 19th-century Hungarian Jesuits

Life

See also

References

External links