On this day in 1933, American physicist and radio engineer Karl Guthe Jansky created the science of radio astronomy by publishing “”Radio Waves From Outside the Solar System” discussing his discovery that radio waves were emanating from the center of the Milky Way galaxy.
Unfortunately, Mr. Jansky was not a trained astronomer, so he was not in a position to develop the field of radio astronomy. He then died at the age of 44, which denied his the chance to earn a Nobel Prize for his finding, though he was nominated for the 1948 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Fortunately, the National Radio Astronomy Observatory’s (NRAO) Very Large Array was later rededicated as the “Karl G. Jansky Very Large Array,” an appropriate gesture to remember his incredible contribution to astronomy.
You can read more about Mr Jansky on this NRAO history page.
Our Awesome Universe 