Born Modena, (Italy), 15 September 1844
Died Rome, Italy, 23 September 1919
Annibale Riccò carried out an exhaustive study of solar prominences, of which he amassed over 20,000 observations, and deduced the existence of the solar wind.
Riccò was educated at the University of Modena, where he received his bachelor's degree in mathematics (1866) and doctorate in natural sciences (1868). He also earned a degree in civil engineering from the Polytechnic Institute of Milan (1868) and began his career as an architect.
Riccò's involvement with astronomy began as an observatory assistant at Modena. In 1872, he cofounded the Society of Italian Spectroscopists, whose efforts were devoted chiefly toward an improved understanding of the Sun. Temporarily an instructor of physics at Naples, Riccò was subsequently appointed an astronomer at the Royal Observatory in Palermo. In 1885, he founded an observatory at Catania, and in 1890 became director of the Catania Observatory and Mount Etna...
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Selected References
Abetti, Giorgio (1920). “Annibale Riccò, 1844–1919.” Astrophysical Journal 51: 65–72.
——— (1975). “Riccò, Annibale.” In Dictionary of Scientific Biography, edited by Charles Coulston Gillispie. Vol. 11, p. 412. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons.
Newall, H. F. (1920). “Annibale Riccò.” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 80: 365–367.
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Marché, J.D. (2007). Riccò, Annibale. In: Hockey, T., et al. The Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-0-387-30400-7_1166
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