Willem Jacob Luyten (March 7, 1899 – November 21, 1994) was a Dutch-American astronomer.
Life
Jacob Luyten was born in Semarang, Java, at the time part of the Dutch East Indies. He also discovered some of the Sun's nearest neighbors, including Luyten's Star as well as the high–proper motion binary star system Luyten 726-8, which was soon found to contain the remarkable flare star UV Ceti.
He published a series of catalogues of high proper motion stars. He catalogued 17,000 high-proper motion stars in the Luyten Two-Tenths Arcsecond Catalog.
Honors
Awards
- James Craig Watson Medal (1964)
- Bruce Medal (1968)
Named after him
- Asteroid 1964 Luyten
- Luyten's Star
References
External links
- National Academy of Sciences biography
- Willem Jacob Luyten 1968 Bruce Medalist