Heber Curtis

Today is the birthday of astronomer and “Great Debate” participant Heber Curtis, born in Muskegon, Michigan in 1872. He received his PhD in astronomy from the University of Virginia in 1902. Much of Curtis’s career was spent at the Lick Observatory in California, where he analyzed the Sun and nebulae. He traveled to see 11 solar eclipses and also served as director of the Allegheny Observatory and the observatories at the University of Michigan. Curtis is best known for sparring (verbally) with astronomer Harlow Shapley at the “Great Debate” on 26 April 1920 in Washington, DC. The topic of discussion was the scale of the universe. Shapley argued that the Sun resides in the outskirts of one giant galaxy that spreads across the cosmos. Curtis argued that we live near the center of just one of many galaxies that compose the universe. Curtis proved correct on the point that there are many, many galaxies besides our own, though he was wrong about the Sun’s place in the Milky Way. (Photo credit: “Through Rugged Ways to the Stars,” H. Shapley, New York: C. Scribner’s, 1969, courtesy AIP Emilio Segre Visual Archives, Shapley Collection)

Date in History: 27 June 1872