Robert Leighton, 77, Physicist Involved in Space Exploration (original) (raw)
U.S.|Robert Leighton, 77, Physicist Involved in Space Exploration
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- March 14, 1997
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March 14, 1997
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Section B, Page
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Dr. Robert B. Leighton, a wide-ranging physicist whose work on telescopes and space exploration gave astronomers new views of the universe, died on Sunday at a nursing home in Pasadena, Calif., where he lived. He was 77.
The cause was neurological disease, said his wife, Marge.
Telescopes invented by Dr. Leighton, called Leighton dishes, straddle the line between light and radio telescopes, allowing astronomers to analyze a relatively unexplored area of the electromagnetic spectrum. Dr. Leighton is also known for discovering five-minute oscillations in local surface velocities of the Sun, work that opened up a research field called solar seismology. And he was the scientist in charge of the first successful Mars probe, which transmitted close-up pictures of the cratered surface of that planet in 1965.
In an eclectic career, Dr. Leighton was drawn to one intriguing problem after another, moving the field forward before moving on himself.
''In any new venture he went into,'' said Dr. Gerry Neugebauer, a physics professor at the California Institute of Technology, ''he skimmed the cream off, then went on to another venture. With his very inquisitive mind, every funny effect that you'd see in nature he'd try to explain.''
Dr. Leighton, a member of the National Academy of Sciences, began his long career at Caltech with groundbreaking work on particle physics. But he turned his attention to astronomy in the 1950's, inventing cameras that picked up the solar oscillations.
In the 1960's, he was the team leader at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory for the Mars probes called Mariner 4, 6 and 7. For the first close-ups from Mars, he helped develop a digital television system for use in deep space. ''He was Mr. Television during the Mariner days,'' said Dr. Charles Peck, chairman of the Division of Physics, Mathematics and Astronomy at Caltech.
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