Abstract
By the death of Sir Norman Lockyer the science of astrophysics has lost the energising and stimulating influence of the last of the great pioneers whose labours opened the way to so vast an extension of our knowledge of the universe. The science of celestial chemistry and physics had its real beginning in 1859, when Kirchhoffs famous experiment on the reversal of spectral lines furnished the key to the interpretation of the dark lines of the solar spectrum, and thence to the determination of the composition of the sun and stars. During the earlier years the outstanding features in the development of the new science were the brilliant investigations of Huggins on the spectra of stars and nebuke, and those of Rutherfurd and Secchi on the spectroscopic classification of the stars. Curiously enough, the sun had received but little attention during this period, and Lockyer was practically entering a virgin field when, in 1866, he attached a small spectroscope to the modest 6-in, equatorial of his private observatory, and observed the spectrum of a sun-spot independently of the rest of the solar surface. Simple as it may now seem, this process of “taking the sun to bits”, as Sir Norman used to call it, was an advance of fundamental importance. It not only gave an immediate and decisive answer to the question as to the cause of the darkness of sun-spots which was then under vigorous discussion in England and France, but also very soon led to the famous discovery of the method of observing solar prominences without an eclipse, with which Lockyers name, in conjunction with that of Janssen, will for ever be associated. The story of this epoch-making observation has been told too often to need repetition, but it should not be forgotten that the principle of the method had been clearly recognised by Lockyer two years before he succeeded in obtaining a spectroscope suitable for the purpose in view.
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FOWLER, A. Sir Norman Lockyer's Contributions to Astrophysics. Nature 105, 831–833 (1920). https://doi.org/10.1038/105831a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/105831a0