Edison Pettit

Edison Pettit
Born(1889-09-22)September 22, 1889
Peru, Nebraska, US
DiedMay 6, 1962(1962-05-06) (aged 72)
Tucson, Arizona, US
Alma materPeru State College
University of Chicago
SpouseHannah Steele Pettit
ChildrenMarjorie Meinel
Scientific career
FieldsAstronomy
InstitutionsMount Wilson Observatory
Thesis The Forms and Motions of Solar Prominences  (1920)

Edison Pettit (September 22, 1889 – May 6, 1962) was an American astronomer.

He was born in Peru, Nebraska. Pettit received his bachelor's degree from the Nebraska State Normal School in Peru.[1] He taught astronomy at Washburn College in Topeka, Kansas from 1914 to 1918. He married Hannah Steele Pettit, who was an assistant at Yerkes Observatory, and received his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1920.

Shortly after he became a staff member at Mount Wilson Observatory. He initially specialized in solar astronomy and built his own thermocouples. He also made visual observations of Mars and Jupiter. Even after his retirement he continued to make spectrographs for various observatories in the machine shop in his home. His two daughters, Marjorie Pettit Meinel and Helen Pettit Knaflich were both astronomers.[2]

Pettit crater on the Moon and another Crater on Mars are named after him.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference Nicholson_1962 was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Meinel, Marjorie Steele (2014), "Pettit, Edison", in Hockey, Thomas; Trimble, Virginia; Williams, Thomas R.; Bracher, Katherine (eds.), Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers, New York, NY: Springer, pp. 1695–1697, Bibcode:2014bea..book.1695M, doi:10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_1079, ISBN 978-1-4419-9917-7, retrieved 2023-02-19