Home > Jacobus Kapteyn

Kapteyn was born in Barneveld, and went to the University of Utrecht to study mathematics and physics in 1868. In 1875, after having finished his thesis, he work for three years at the Leiden Observatory in Leiden, South Holland, before becoming the first Professor of Astronomy and Theoretical Mechanics at the University of GroningenThe University of Groningen ( Dutch: Rijksuniversiteit Groningen or RuG) is a university in Groningen, Netherlands. It is one of the oldest research universities in Europe, boasting more than 100,000 graduates since its inception in 1614. More than 20,000, which he remained until his retirement in 1921Events January 2 The first religious radio broadcast ( KDKA AM in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania) January 2 Spanish liner Santa Isabel sinks off Villa Garcia 244 dead January 2 DeYoung Museum in Golden Gate Park San Francisco opens. January 20 Republic of Turke.

Between 1896Events January 4 Utah is admitted as the 45th U. January 5 An Austrian newspaper reports that Wilhelm Rontgen discovered a type of radiation later known as X-rays. January 12 H. Smith takes the first X-ray photograph. January 18 The X-ray machine is exhib and 19001900 is the common year starting on Monday. see link for calendar) For the film, see 1900 (film). Events January January 1 Nigeria becomes British protectorate January 2 John Hay announces the Open Door Policy to promote trade with China. January 2 Chicag, lacking an observatory, he volunteered to measure photographic platePhotographic plates were one of the earliest forms of photographic film, in which a light-sensitive emulsion of silver salts was applied to a glass plate. This form of photographic emulsion largely faded from the consumer market in the early years of thes taken by David GillSir David Gill ( June 12 1843 January 24 1914) was a Scottish astronomer who spent much of his career in South Africa. He used the parallax of Mars to determine the distance to the Sun, and also measured distances to the stars. He perfected the use of the, who was conducting a photographic survey of the southern hemisphere stars at the Cape Town Observatory . The results of this collaboration was the publication of Cape Photographic Durchmusterung, a catalog listing positions and magnitudes for 454,875 stars on the Southern Hemisphere.

In 1897, as part of the above work, he discovered Kapteyn's Star. At the time, it had the highest proper motion of any star known. Today it is in second place, having been dethroned by Barnard's Star.

In 1902 he won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society.

In 1904, studying the proper motions of stars, Kapteyn reported that these were not random, as it was believed in that time; stars could be divided into two streams, moving in nearly opposite directions. It was later realized that Kapteyn's data had been the first evidence of the rotation of our Galaxy, which ultimately led to the finding of galactic rotation by Bertil Lindblad and Jan Oort.

In 1906, Kapteyn launched a plan for a major study of the distribution of stars in the Galaxy, using counts of stars in different directions. The plan involved measuring the apparent magnitude, spectral type, radial velocity and proper motion of stars in 206 zones. This enormous project was the first coordinated statistical analysis in astronomy and involved the cooperation of over 40 different observatories.

Kapteyn retired in 1921 at the age of 70, but on the request of his former student and director of Leiden Observatory Willem de Sitter, Kapteyn went back to Leiden to assist in upgrading the observatory to contemporary astronomical standards.

His life-work First attempt at a theory of the arrangement and motion of the sidereal system was published in 1922, and described a lens-shaped island universe of which the density decreased away from the center, now known as the Kapteyn's Universe model. In his model the Galaxy was thought to be 40,000 light years in size, the sun being relatively close (2,000 light years) to its center. The model was valid at high galactic latitudes but failed in the galactic plane because of the lack of knowledge of interstellar absorption.

It was only after Kapteyn's death, at Amsterdam in 1922, that Robert Trumpler determined that the amount of extinction was actually much greater than had been assumed. This discovery increased the estimate of the galaxy's size to 100,000 light years, with the sun replaced to a distance of 30,000 light years from its center.