Grigor GURZADYAN (b. 1922)

Member of the Armenian Academy of Sciences (1986; corresponding member 1965), Doctor of Science, 1955, Ph.D. 1948.

 

Grigor Aram Gurzadyan was born on October 15, 1922 in Baghdad, Iraq, to parents fled in 1915 from Western Armenia. Upon graduating the Yerevan Polytechnic Institute in 1944, he became the postgraduate of Victor Ambartsumian, who had just moved to Armenia. Being in Ambartsumian’s founding team of Byurakan observatory, he later headed a Laboratory, in 1960s became deputy director of the observatory for space research. Headed the branch of Byurakan observatory on space research, Garni space astronomy laboratory (Institute, 1992-2004).

 

He is among the pioneers of space astronomy. In 1960s he directed the UV and X-ray observations of sun and stars using ballistic rockets R-5, the first launch being on February 15, 1961 from Kapustin-Yar base. His paper in Comm. Armenian Acad. Sciences, XLIII, 28, 1966, “A Powerful X-ray Flare on the Sun” (of October 1, 1965) is among the early papers on space astronomy. Then he moved to design space orbital observatories. The highlight was Orion 2 space observatory operated onboard the spacecraft Soyuz 13 in December 1973. Spectra of thousands of stars to as faint as 13th magnitude were obtained, the first satellite UV spectrogram of a planetary nebula was obtained, revealing lines of aluminum and titanium - elements not previously observed in planetary nebulae, two-photon emission from nebula was detected for the first time. For comparison, the Skylab’s UV telescope, which was on the orbit at the same time, could only look at stars down to 7.5^th magnitude. Two years earlier, in April, 1971, the first space station Salyut 1 carried into orbit Orion 1, the first space telescope with an objective prism. The results were spread over main journals, including 3 articles in Nature.

 

He authored theoretical papers on planetary nebulae, interstellar matter, and flare stars. In 1990s he developed the theory of common chromospheres (roundchromes) of close binary stars and of evolution of binary globular clusters (2000, MNRAS).

 

For decades he lectured in Yerevan State University (theoretical astrophysics) and in Polytechnic Institute (precise mechanics).

 

He has published over 200 papers and a number of monographs, including “Radioastrophysics” (1956), “Planetary Nebulae” (Nauka 1962; Gordon & Breach, 1970), “Flare Stars” (Nauka 1973; Pergamon, 1980), “Stellar Chromospheres” (Nauka, 1984), “Physics and Dynamics of Planetary Nebulae” (Nauka, 1988; Springer, 1997), “Theory of Interplanetary Flights” (1996, Gordon & Breach), “Space Dynamics” (2002, Francis & Taylor). According to a reviewer of the latter volume, G. Gilmore of Cambridge, he “readily imagine it becoming a classic in its field”.