Memoir

Charles A. Young

December 15, 1834 - January 3, 1908


Membership Type:
Member (elected 1872)

Charles Augustus Young was an astronomer who studied the surface of the Sun. He watched solar eclipses through a tool called a spectroscope, which provided him with clues about the gaseous nature and activity of the Sun’s surface, as well as the sun’s rotation and its influence on the magnetic properties of Earth.

Young graduated from Dartmouth College in 1853 at the age of eighteen. He taught classics at a college preparatory school and studied to be a missionary for several years. Then, in 1857 he was invited to be a professor of mathematics, natural philosophy, and astronomy at Western Reserve University, which set the course of his career toward science.

After serving as briefly as a captain in the 85th regiment of Ohio, Young accepted a position as professor of natural philosophy and astronomy at Dartmouth College. The position at Dartmouth provided him with ample equipment—including his first spectroscope—to observe and make detailed notes about the various layers of the solar atmosphere, as well as solar protrusions, which are commonly referred to now as solar flares. In 1877, Young moved to Princeton University as a professor of astronomy. He quickly improved the rank of the university’s program and focused his remaining years of research on the Sun, as well as other planets, comets, and stars.

Young wrote a great deal about his observations of the Sun and other bodies in space, not only in scientific books and journals but also in popular magazines. He received numerous honorary degrees and awards throughout his career, and he was a member of several honorary societies, including the National Academy of Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, professional astronomy societies in the United States, England, and Italy, and philosophical societies in the United States and in England.

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