James Edward Keeler - Honors and Legacy

Honors and Legacy

Keeler was awarded the Henry Draper Medal from the National Academy of Sciences in 1899. In 1900 he was elected president of the Astronomical Society of the Pacific.

In 1880, Allegheny Observatory director Samuel Pierpont Langley, accompanied by Keeler and others, went on a scientific expedition to the summit of Mount Whitney. The purpose of the expedition was to study how the Sun's radiation was selectively absorbed by the Earth's atmosphere, comparing the results at high altitude with those found at lower levels. As a result of the expedition, a 14,240-ft. peak near Mount Whitney was named the "Keeler Needle".

In addition to the Keeler gap in Saturn's rings, craters on Mars and the Moon are named in his honor, as is the asteroid 2261 Keeler.

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