The Most Famous

ASTRONOMERS from Canada

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This page contains a list of the greatest Canadian Astronomers. The pantheon dataset contains 644 Astronomers, 9 of which were born in Canada. This makes Canada the birth place of the 13th most number of Astronomers behind Belgium, and Switzerland.

Top 10

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the top 10 most legendary Canadian Astronomers of all time. This list of famous Canadian Astronomers is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity. Visit the rankings page to view the entire list of Canadian Astronomers.

Photo of Arthur B. McDonald

1. Arthur B. McDonald (b. 1943)

With an HPI of 63.01, Arthur B. McDonald is the most famous Canadian Astronomer.  His biography has been translated into 64 different languages on wikipedia.

Arthur Bruce McDonald, P.Eng (born August 29, 1943) is a Canadian astrophysicist. McDonald is the director of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory Collaboration and held the Gordon and Patricia Gray Chair in Particle Astrophysics at Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario from 2006 to 2013. He was awarded the 2015 Nobel Prize in Physics jointly with Japanese physicist Takaaki Kajita.

Photo of Hubert Reeves

2. Hubert Reeves (1932 - 2023)

With an HPI of 56.78, Hubert Reeves is the 2nd most famous Canadian Astronomer.  His biography has been translated into 25 different languages.

Hubert Reeves (July 13, 1932 – October 13, 2023) was a Canadian astrophysicist and popularizer of science.

Photo of John Stanley Plaskett

3. John Stanley Plaskett (1865 - 1941)

With an HPI of 55.54, John Stanley Plaskett is the 3rd most famous Canadian Astronomer.  His biography has been translated into 17 different languages.

John Stanley Plaskett (November 17, 1865 – October 17, 1941) was a Canadian astronomer.

Photo of James Craig Watson

4. James Craig Watson (1838 - 1880)

With an HPI of 55.03, James Craig Watson is the 4th most famous Canadian Astronomer.  His biography has been translated into 28 different languages.

James Craig Watson (January 28, 1838 – November 23, 1880) was a Canadian-American astronomer, discoverer of comets and minor planets, director of the University of Michigan's Detroit Observatory in Ann Arbor, and awarded with the Lalande Prize in 1869.

Photo of David H. Levy

5. David H. Levy (b. 1948)

With an HPI of 51.12, David H. Levy is the 5th most famous Canadian Astronomer.  His biography has been translated into 26 different languages.

David Howard Levy (born May 22, 1948) is a Canadian amateur astronomer, science writer and discoverer of comets and minor planets, who co-discovered Comet Shoemaker–Levy 9 in 1993, which collided with the planet Jupiter in 1994.

Photo of Carlyle S. Beals

6. Carlyle S. Beals (1899 - 1979)

With an HPI of 42.46, Carlyle S. Beals is the 6th most famous Canadian Astronomer.  His biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Carlyle Smith Beals, FRS (June 29, 1899 – July 2, 1979) was a Canadian astronomer.

Photo of Wendy Freedman

7. Wendy Freedman (b. 1957)

With an HPI of 39.66, Wendy Freedman is the 7th most famous Canadian Astronomer.  Her biography has been translated into 21 different languages.

Wendy Laurel Freedman (born July 17, 1957) is a Canadian-American astronomer, best known for her measurement of the Hubble constant, and as director of the Carnegie Observatories in Pasadena, California, and Las Campanas, Chile. She is now the John & Marion Sullivan University Professor of Astronomy and Astrophysics at the University of Chicago. Her principal research interests are in observational cosmology, focusing on measuring both the current and past expansion rates of the universe, and on characterizing the nature of dark energy.

Photo of Brett J. Gladman

8. Brett J. Gladman (b. 1966)

With an HPI of 37.00, Brett J. Gladman is the 8th most famous Canadian Astronomer.  His biography has been translated into 20 different languages.

Brett James Gladman (born April 19, 1966) is a Canadian astronomer and a full professor at the University of British Columbia's Department of Physics and Astronomy in Vancouver, British Columbia. He holds the Canada Research Chair in planetary astronomy. He does both theoretical work (large-scale numerical simulations of planetary dynamics) and observational optical astronomy (being a discoverer of many planetary moons and minor planets).

Photo of Sara Seager

9. Sara Seager (b. 1971)

With an HPI of 36.30, Sara Seager is the 9th most famous Canadian Astronomer.  Her biography has been translated into 26 different languages.

Sara Seager (born 21 July 1971) is a Canadian-American astronomer and planetary scientist. She is a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and is known for her work on extrasolar planets and their atmospheres. She is the author of two textbooks on these topics, and has been recognized for her research by Popular Science, Discover Magazine, Nature, and TIME Magazine. Seager was awarded a MacArthur Fellowship in 2013 citing her theoretical work on detecting chemical signatures on exoplanet atmospheres and developing low-cost space observatories to observe planetary transits.

Photo of Linda A. Morabito

10. Linda A. Morabito (b. 1953)

With an HPI of 36.25, Linda A. Morabito is the 10th most famous Canadian Astronomer.  Her biography has been translated into 15 different languages.

Linda A. Morabito (born November 21, 1953), also known as Linda Kelly, Linda Hyder, and Linda Morabito-Meyer, is the astronomer who discovered volcanic activity on Io, a moon of Jupiter. She made this finding on March 9, 1979, at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. At the time of her discovery, she was serving as Cognizant Engineer over the Optical Navigation Image Processing System (ONIPS) on the Voyager deep space mission Navigation Team. While performing image processing analysis of a Voyager 1 picture taken for spacecraft navigation, she detected a 270 kilometres (170 mi) tall cloud off the limb of Io. The cloud was of volcanic origin. This was the first time in history that active volcanism was detected off of Earth. Her discovery is considered by some planetary scientists as the largest discovery of the planetary exploration program that has come out of Jet Propulsion Laboratory. Morabito is currently an associate professor of astronomy at Victor Valley College. She also authored a memoir, Parallel Universes, a Memoir from the Edges of Space and Time.

People

Pantheon has 11 people classified as Canadian astronomers born between 1838 and 1971. Of these 11, 7 (63.64%) of them are still alive today. The most famous living Canadian astronomers include Arthur B. McDonald, David H. Levy, and Wendy Freedman. The most famous deceased Canadian astronomers include Hubert Reeves, John Stanley Plaskett, and James Craig Watson. As of April 2024, 2 new Canadian astronomers have been added to Pantheon including Carlyle S. Beals, and Linda A. Morabito.

Living Canadian Astronomers

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Deceased Canadian Astronomers

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Newly Added Canadian Astronomers (2024)

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Overlapping Lives

Which Astronomers were alive at the same time? This visualization shows the lifespans of the 4 most globally memorable Astronomers since 1700.