Jan van Paradijs
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Jan van Paradijs | |
|---|---|
 Jan van Paradijs in 1993 | |
| Born | 9 June 1946 Haarlem, Netherlands |
| Died | 2 November 1999 (aged 53)[1] Amsterdam, Netherlands |
| Alma mater | University of Amsterdam |
| Spouse | [2] |
| Awards | Bruno Rossi Prize (1998)[3] |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astrophysics |
| Institutions | |
Johannes A. van Paradijs (9 June 1946 – 2 November 1999) was a Dutch high-energy astrophysicist. He is best known for discovering the first optical afterglow of a gamma-ray burst, GRB 970228, in February 1997, together with two of his students,[2] and for establishing that gamma-ray bursts are extragalactic events. He was married to the astrophysicist Chryssa Kouveliotou.
Van Paradijs determined the first mass of a neutron star, the X-ray pulsar Vela X-1 in 1975. In 1978 he showed that X-ray bursters are neutron stars in binary systems. Using spectroscopic mapping, he was the first to spatially resolve an accretion disk.[1]
