author
James Edward Keeler
1857–1900
An early American astrophysicist, he helped show that Saturn’s rings are made of countless small particles rather than a single solid sheet. His short career also helped open the way for photographing and studying distant nebulae and galaxies.
1 Audiobook
Photographs of Nebulæ and Clusters, Made with the Crossley Reflector
by James Edward Keeler
About the author
Born in La Salle, Illinois, in 1857, James Edward Keeler became one of the most respected American astronomers of his era. He studied at Johns Hopkins University and worked with Samuel P. Langley at the Allegheny Observatory before continuing study in Heidelberg and Berlin.
Keeler is best remembered for using spectroscopy to show that Saturn’s rings do not rotate as one solid body, a result that strongly supported the idea that the rings are made of many separate particles. He also worked at Lick Observatory, later directed the Allegheny Observatory, and then returned to Lick as director.
In the last years of his life, he made important photographic studies of spiral nebulae, helping expand astronomy’s view of the wider universe. He died in 1900 at only forty-two, but his work left a lasting mark on planetary science and observational astronomy.