Baade, Walter

1893 -  Walter Baade was born 24th of March in Schröttinghausen, Westphalia, Germany.

1919-1931 - Obtained a Ph.D. at Göttingen,and spent eleven years on the staff of the University of Hamburg.

1930 -  Baade and his colleague Fritz Zwicky were among the first to suggest that neutron stars were the remnant cores of massive stars that had ended their lives as supernoae.

          - Made his greatest contributions to astronomy during World War II. Because Los Angeles, California was blacked-out, the skies were exceptionally dark and free from "light pollution." Baade, taking advantage of the darkness, made a detailed study of the Andromeda galaxy and was able to resolve some of the stars near its core.

         - Discovered that the stars near the core of the Andromeda galaxy were reddish.

1931 - Moved to the United States and started working at the Mt. Palomar and Mt. Wilson observatories.

1952 - Established a new period-luminosity curve and determined that the distance to the Andromeda galaxy was actually around 2,000,000 light-years.

1958 -  Returned to Germany, and he was also awarded the American Astronomical Society's Henry Norris Russell lectureship, honoring a lifetime of distinguished achievement in astronomy.

1955 - Recipient of the Bruce Medal award.

1960 - Baade died 25th of June with a great contribution in the world.

Discovered 10 asteroids, including notably 944 Hidalgo and the Apollo-class asteroid 1566 Icarus whose perihelion is closer than that of Mercury and the Amor asteroid 1036 Ganymed.