Kuiper, the son of a tailor in the village of Tuitjenhorn in North Holland, had an early interest in astronomy. He had extraordinarily sharp eyesight, allowing him to see with the naked eye magnitude 7.5 stars, about four times fainter than those visible to normal eyes.
During the second world war, from 1943 to 1945 Kuiper took leave of absence from the University of Chicago to research radar countermeasures at the faculty of Harvard's Radio Research Laboratory. This led to attachment to the Eighth Air Force Headquarters, England (1944) and return to Europe (January 1945, seconded to the ALSOS mission). Besides assessing the state of German science, Kuiper accomplished a rather daring rescue of Max Planck, stuck in the eastern zone of Germany and in danger of being captured by the Soviets. Kuiper raced across the countryside only hours ahead of the Soviets to retrieve Planck and his wife.
From 1947 to 1949, Kuiper served as the director of the McDonald Observatory in west Texas.[2]
In 1949, Kuiper initiated the Yerkes–McDonald asteroid survey (1950–1952).
In the 1950s Kuiper's interdisciplinary collaboration with the geochemist and Nobel Laureate Harold C. Urey to understand the Moon's thermal evolution descended into acrimony, as the two engaged in what became known as the "Hot Moon Cold Moon" controversy. Their falling out, in part a scientific dispute, also reflected the challenge of maintaining professional relationships across overlapping but distinct scientific disciplines.[5]
Kuiper discovered several binary stars which received "Kuiper numbers" to identify them, such as KUI 79.
Personal life and death
He married Sarah Parker Fuller (1913-2000) on 20 June 1936. Kuiper died age 68 of a heart attack on 23 December 1973 in Mexico City, while on vacation with his wife.[7]
Astronomers refer to a region of minor planets beyond Neptune as the "Kuiper belt", since Kuiper had suggested that such small planets or comets may have formed there. However Kuiper himself believed that such objects would have been swept clear by planetary gravitational perturbations, so that none or few would exist there today.[citation needed]
^Cameras in Ranger VIII were turned on 23 minutes before impact, and the spacecraft transmitted pictures back to earth until it struck the surface and was destroyed. The flight's product would be intensively studied by a panel of noted lunar scientists, among them Gerard P. Kuiper and Ewen A. Whitaker of the University of Arizona and Harold C. Urey of the University of California. — Brooks & Ertel (1976, p. 75)[6]
^"NASA Solar System Exploration". solarsystem.nasa.gov. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). Archived from the original on 11 April 2015. Retrieved 12 April 2015.
^"Milestones". McDonald Observatory. Retrieved 25 November 2020.
^Doel, Ronald E. (1996). Solar System Astronomy in America: Communities, patronage, and interdisciplinary science, 1920–1960. New York: Cambridge University Press. ISBN9780521115681.
^Brooks, Courtney G.; Ertel, Ivan D. (1976). The Apollo Spacecraft: A chronology. Scientific and Technical Information Division, Office of Technology Use. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). p. 75.
^Williams, Matt (11 November 2015). "Who was Gerard Kuiper?". Universe Today. Retrieved 24 March 2020.