| Aleksander Wolszczan | |
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Aleksander Wolszczan
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| Born | 29 April 1946 Szczecinek, Poland |
| Nationality | Polish |
| Fields | Astronomer |
| Alma mater | Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń |
| Known for | Discovery of the first extrasolar planets and pulsar planets |
| Notable awards | Beatrice M. Tinsley Prize |
Aleksander Wolszczan [alɛkˈsandɛr ˈvɔlʂt͡ʂan] ( listen) (born 29 April 1946 in Szczecinek, Poland) is a Polish astronomer. He is the co-discoverer of the first extrasolar planets and pulsar planets.
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Wolszczan was educated in Poland (MSc in 1969 and received his PhD in 1975 at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń), He moved in 1982 to the U.S. to work at Cornell and Princeton University. Later he became an astronomy professor at Pennsylvania State University, where he currently teaches. From 1994 to 2008 he was also a professor at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. He is a member of the Polish Academy of Sciences.
Working with Dale Frail, Wolszczan carried out astronomical observations from the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico which led them to the discovery of the pulsar PSR B1257+12 in 1990. They showed in 1992 that the pulsar is orbited by two planets. Their orbits are 0.36 and 0.47 AU respectively. This was the first confirmed discovery of planets outside the Solar System (over seven hundred are known today).
In 1996, Wolszczan was awarded the Beatrice M. Tinsley Prize by the American Astronomical Society, and in 2002, he was pictured on a Polish postage stamp.[1]
In 2003 Maciej Konacki and Wolszczan determined the orbital inclinations of the two pulsar planets, showing that the actual masses are approximately 3.9 and 4.3 Earth masses.
On 17 September 2008 Wolszczan acknowledged earlier allegations that from 1973 until 1988 he had been a paid informer of the Security Service of the Ministry of Internal Affairs (Służba Bezpieczeństwa), the Communist secret police of the former People's Republic of Poland.[2]