Walter S Adams
Walter Adams died on May 11th 1956, born in Syria
on December 20th 1876, Adams was the son of American missionaries.
After receiving his bachelor's degree at Dartmouth College, he accompanied his
astronomy professor, Edwin B. Frost, to Yerkes Observatory. After two years
there he was summoned by his Yerkes director, George Ellery Hale, to help
establish the Mt. Wilson Solar
Observatory.
His spectroscopic studies of the sun, done with Hale and
others, led to the discovery that the sunspots are regions of lower
temperatures and stronger magnetic fields than their surroundings.
He shared with Theodore Dunham, Jr. in the discoveries of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of Venus. Adams observing Sirius (the dog star) realised that the companion star Sirius B (the pup) as the
first white dwarf star known, and his measurement of its gravitational redshift
was taken as confirming evidence for the general theory of relativity
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