BornSaint Petersburg, Russia, 2 September 1908
Diednear Leningrad (Saint Petersburg, Russia), 27 February 1983
Russian astrophysicist Nikolai Kozyrev is best remembered for his claim that he recorded photographically the spectra of emission from gas on the Moon no fewer than four times. This has been widely accepted as evidence that the Moon is not (quite) geologically dead.
Kozyrev graduated from the University of Leningrad in 1928 and, in 1931, was appointed to the staff at Pulkov Astronomical Observatory. He also worked at various times at the observatories in Kharkov, Ukraine, and in the Crimea. Kozyrev was part of the large group of Pulkovo Observatory astronomers (most famously Boris Gerasimovich ) who were arrested in 1936 and imprisoned or executed. Kozyrev appears briefly in the memoir The Gulag Archipelagoby Alexander Solzhenitsyn, because the author was deeply impressed by his efforts to continue to carry out work in astrophysics under extraordinarily hostile...
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Selected References
Deutsch, A. N. (1984). Obituary. Zemlya i Vselennaya 1: 50–51.
Doel, Ronald E. (1996). “The Lunar Volcanism Controversy.” Sky & Telescope 92, no. 4: 26–30.
Kozyrev, N. A. (1955). Isvestia Krymskoy Astrophysicheskoy Observatorii 15: 169–181.
— (1962). “Physical Observations of the Lunar Surface.” In Physics and Astronomy of the Moon, edited by Zdeněk Kopal, pp. 361–383. New York: Academic Press, see pp. 366–367.
— (1968). Possibility of Experimental Study of Time. Washington, DC: US Department of Commerce Joint Publication Research Service.
— (1974). “East-West Asymmetry of Saturn’s Ring.” Astrophysics and Space Science 27: 111–116.
Moore, Patrick (1992). “Astronomers and Josef Stalin.” In Fireside Astronomy. New York: John Wiley and Sons.
Sheehan, William P. and Thomas A. Dobbins (2001). Epic Moon: A History of Lunar Exploration in the Age of the Telescope. Richmond, VA: Willmann-Bell.
Solzhenitsyn, Alexander (1973). The Gulag Archipelago. New York: Harper and Row, pp. 480–484.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2014 Springer Science+Business Media New York
About this entry
Cite this entry
Sheehan, W., Dobbins, T.A. (2014). Kozyrev, Nikolai Alexandrovich. In: Hockey, T., et al. Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_797
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4419-9917-7_797
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4419-9916-0
Online ISBN: 978-1-4419-9917-7
eBook Packages: Physics and AstronomyReference Module Physical and Materials ScienceReference Module Chemistry, Materials and Physics