Abstract
Tthe long list of astronomers recently deceased, with the greatest regret we have to add the name of Prof. George Rayet, who for five-and4wenty years directed the Observatory of Bordeaux with equal vigour and success. Born in 1839, and entering the Paris Observatory in the early 'sixties, the name of Rayet not only recalls to us the ancient history of that establishment, when its fortunes were guided by Le Verrier and Delaunay, but the forty years that separate us from that period embrace the new departures that have been made, in more than one of which Rayet may be said to have assisted. For example, at that time Le Verrier was engaged in the creation of an international bureau for the furtherance of meteorological study. The subject of weather forecasting was then in its infancy, and Le Verrier was endeavouring to give scientific accuracy and precision to the method. Into this department and the allied subject of storm warnings Rayet was early initiated. Similarly his astronomical career coincides very approximately with the time in which spectroscopic studies have been vigorously prosecuted, and in this department he laboured strenuously. It may be recalled that he was one of the observers of the famous solar eclipse of 1868, when the characteristic light of hydrogen was first perceived in the solar prominences, and we were further led to the study of the helium ray. In another direction Prof. Rayet was again a pioneer, when, in conjunction with M. Wolf, he detected that peculiar variety of gaseous star with which his name has been particularly associated. The three typical representatives found in the constellation Cygnus are now members of a tolerably large class, the spectroscopic examination of which has done much to widen our conceptions of stellar chemistry.
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P., W. Prof. George Rayet . Nature 74, 382 (1906). https://doi.org/10.1038/074382a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/074382a0