Sitav wrote:
who are the "famous" astronomers of the 21st century. i havent heard
of many well known astronomers or astrophysicists.........yet.

Famous to whom? I'll never forget when I first started college I took a
writing class. We had the assignment to write about someone famous. I
chose to write about Sir William Herschel.

In this class we all sat in a circle. The author read his/her paper
while the rest of the class listened. Everyone was encouraged to offer
critiques during the reading.

When it came my turn I was pretty nervous. My very first sentence went
something like, ".. the famous astronomer William Herschel..." Right
away a woman spoke up (she no doubt had written about some pop star) and
said, "How can he be famous, I've never heard of him!" The rest of the
class looked at each other and agreed!

Yet of course Herschel is one of the most famous astronomers of all
time, most notably because he discovered Uranus, which put him among a
very select few who could make such a claim.

The problem, of course, was that the young college students in the class
couldn't have named *any* famous astronomers, except perhaps Sagan.

My point is that perhaps "famous" isn't really the right question. It
relies too much on popular culture. Perhaps "noteworthy" would be better?

As far as noteworthy astronomers go, I might suggest Geoffrey Marcy, who
leads the pack in discovering the exoplanets.

--
Greg Crinklaw
Astronomical Software Developer
Cloudcroft, New Mexico, USA (33N, 106W, 2700m)

SkyTools: http://www.skyhound.com/cs.html
Observing: http://www.skyhound.com/sh/skyhound.html
Comets: http://www.skyhound.com/sh/comets.html

To reply take out your eye