Edward Emerson Barnard

Astronomer

• Born: December 16, 1857
• Birthplace: Nashville, Tennessee
• Died: February 6, 1923
• Place of death: Williams Bay, Wisconsin

American astronomer

In 1916, Edward Emerson Barnard discovered Barnard’s Star, which is the second-nearest star to our solar system and the fourth-closest known star to the sun. Although Barnard was not the first to observe the star, he was the first to accurately measure its proper motion of 10.3 arc seconds per year by using photographic images taken several years apart, in order to track the star’s movement.

Born: December 16, 1857; Nashville, Tennessee

Died: February 6, 1923; Williams Bay, Wisconsin

Primary field: Astronomy

Specialty: Observational astronomy

Early Life

Edward Emerson Barnard was born in 1857 in Nashville, Tennessee, to Reuben and Elizabeth Barnard. Barnard’s father died before Edward was born, and he had one brother. Barnard grew up in a poor family, in the middle of the Civil War, during a period in history when the Union Army occupied Nashville.

Barnard had almost no formal education, but it was his first job, in a photography studio, that helped shape his future career as an astronomer. When he was nine years old, Barnard took a job at the Van Stavoren photography studio as a photographer’s assistant. His main duty as an assistant required him to keep a large device on the roof of the studio trained on the sun, so that the photographer could access a source of light in order to enlarge photos. Barnard kept this job for six years. James Braid was a colleague of Barnard at the photography studio. A skilled inventor, he later founded the Braid Electric Company. Braid introduced Barnard to astronomy, giving him a homemade telescope. Barnard also assisted Braid in building a second telescope.

With a developing interest in astronomy, Barnard saved $380—a large sum of money in the mid-1800s—to purchase a telescope that had multiple eyepieces. His new telescope became so popular that crowds would climb to the roof of the photography studio in order to look through it. In 1877, Barnard attended a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Nashville. Barnard spoke with the association’s president about his interest in astronomy. The president, noting Barnard’s limited education, told him that without an education or mathematical skills, astronomy could never be more than a hobby. In 1881, Barnard married Rhoda Calvert, an English-born woman who had come to Tennessee with her brothers, artists who had connections with the Van Stavoren studio.

Life’s Work

In 1881, a wealthy businessman named Hulbert Harrington Warner offered to pay $200 for every discovery of a new comet. In response, Barnard discovered five new comets and was paid $1,000. Barnard had struggled financially in his adult life and the timing of his discoveries was fortunate. He used the money to pay for a house, which was referred to by some as the “comet house.” One of the comets that Barnard discovered became known as 1881 VI. During this time, Bernard worked at the photography studio by day and spent time in the evenings studying with a tutor and exploring the night sky.

Barnard discovered several comets by 1883 and had become well known in the local astronomy community. That same year, several of Barnard’s colleagues at Vanderbilt University in Tennessee offered him a fellowship, which allowed him to begin attending university classes and devote his time to astronomy. Barnard reveled in his use of the facilities at Vanderbilt. He discovered seven more comets, a new nebula (a cloud of dust, hydrogen, or other gases), and a Gegenschein, which is a brightening of the sky at a particular point. He took courses in mathematics and became an instructor of practical astronomy. During his years at Vanderbilt, Barnard wrote about his discoveries in various academic journals. Barnard received an honorary Bachelor of Science degree from Vanderbilt in 1887. He was thirty years old.

Barnard continued to study at Vanderbilt until 1887, when he took a position at the Lick Observatory in California. Because construction of the observatory was not yet complete when he arrived in California, Barnard did clerical work for an attorney in order to earn money. At the time it was completed, the Lick Observatory had the largest telescope in the world. Barnard made great use of the observatory. In 1892, he discovered Amalthea, the fifth moon of Jupiter, as well as 206P/Barnard-Boattini, which was the first comet discovered by photographic means. The photographic discovery of comets became commonplace after this.

In 1895, Barnard began working at the University of Chicago’s Yerkes Observatory in Williams Bay, Wisconsin, where he also served as a professor of astronomy. Barnard was able to devote much of his time to research. He spent twenty-eight years at Yerkes, and made some of his most important discoveries there. He conducted extensive studies of the Milky Way galaxy, taking photographs that helped astronomers better to understand the composition of the galaxy.

In 1914, Barnard was diagnosed with diabetes. As part of his treatment, doctors ordered him to refrain from working for an entire year. In 1916, Barnard made perhaps his most famous and important discovery, a red dwarf star that came to be known as Barnard’s Star. This particular star was notable for several reasons: Barnard’s Star is the fourth-nearest star to the sun and the second-nearest star to the Earth’s solar system. In addition, it exhibits the largest known “proper motion,” which is a measure of the change in a star’s position. While working at Yerkes, Barnard took nearly four thousand images of the Milky Way and the sky, which greatly aided future investigation and research of stars, comets, and the structure of the universe.

In 1919, Barnard published a list of a series of dark nebula that he had catalogued in the Astrophysical Journal. His wife died in 1921. In 1923, Barnard fell ill and died; he was taken to Nashville, Tennessee for burial. He was sixty-five years old. Several of Barnard’s astronomical photographs were published posthumously in 1927.

Impact

Barnard’s life story has served as a source of inspiration for generations of astronomers. Without financial means or a formal education, Barnard cultivated a dream and established himself as an influential figure in his field. He did not let others delay his desire to succeed. He is the only person in history to receive an honorary academic degree from Vanderbilt University, which stands as a testament to his importance as an astronomer and his contributions made while in Tennessee.

Barnard’s contributions to astronomy are impressive. He discovered or codiscovered numerous comets, Jupiter’s fifth moon (Amalthea), and Barnard’s Star, and he was a pioneer with respect to the use of photographs in studying stars, comets, and the solar system. He worked as an associate fellow at the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. Barnard also earned numerous awards and honors in his lifetime. He was awarded the gold medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1897 and received the Bruce Medal “for lifetime contributions to astronomy” in 1917. Additionally, a lunar crater and a Martian crater were named in his honor.

Bibliography

Barnard, Edward Emerson. A Photographic Atlas of Selected Regions of the Milky Way. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2011. Print. A reprinting of Barnard’s two-volume set first published in 1927, containing high-resolution images of Barnard’s original photographic plates, charts, and data, as well as biographical information about Barnard’s life.

Kaler, James B. The Hundred Greatest Stars. New York: Copernicus, 2002. Print. Provides key facts about Barnard’s Star, along with similar data about ninety-nine other famous stars. Illustrations, appendices, glossary.

Sheehan, William. The Immortal Fire Within: The Life and Work of Edward Emerson Barnard. New York: Cambridge UP, 2007. Print. Offers a comprehensive biography of Barnard, covering his childhood and early years, as well as his professional accomplishments. Index.