Astrophysics
in Armenia became linked to the world-famous name of Victor
Hambardzumian. One of his students would become an important name in
cosmic astronomy.
Grigor
Gurzadyan was born on October 15, 1922, in Baghdad (Iraq), the child of
survivors from the Armenian Genocide. He emigrated to Soviet Armenia
with his family when he was just a child. His brother Sargis
(1929-2015), born in Yerevan, would coauthor the project of
embellishment of Tamanian Street (the area known as Cascade).
Grigor
Gurzadyan entered the Polytechnic Institute of Yerevan (now Yerevan
State University of Engineering) and graduated in 1944 from the
faculties of hydrotechnics and construction. Afterwards, he made a big
shift in his career and entered the field of astronomy. He was one of
the founding members of the observatory of Biurakan, created in 1946 by
Hambardzumian. Under his direction, Gurzadyan defended his doctoral
thesis at the State University of Moscow in 1948, at the age of
twenty-six, with the subject “The Radiation Equilibrium of Interstellar
Gas Material.” He became a professor at Yerevan State University from
1948-1978 and head of the section of Physics of Stars and Nebulae of the
observatory from 1950-1966.
He
defended his second doctorate in 1955 at the State University of
Leningrad (now St. Petersburg). In the same year, he married Marianna
Kalantar, a professor of Russian and daughter of Ashkharbek Kalantar,
one of the founders of Armenian archaeology and victim of the Stalin
purges. Their children Vahagn and Gagik would also become well-known
physicists.
Gurzadyan
became a well-known name in Soviet science. He published ten voluminous
monographs about issues of astrophysics and more than 200 scholarly
articles in Russian and English. He studied the physics and dynamics of
nebulae and predicted the role of magnetic fields in nebulae from the
1960s, formulating a theory of star explosions based on the non-thermal
phenomena going in them. He headed the observations of ultraviolet and
X-rays in the sun and the stars with the launching of orbital telescopes
in the 1960s. In 1965 he was elected corresponding member of the
Academy of Sciences of Armenia, From 1967-1973 he was the head of the
branch of cosmic studies at the observatory of Biurakan.
Gurzadyan’s
most important achievement in the design of orbital telescopes was the
series “Orion,” which contributed to important scientific results. The
telescopes “Orion-1” and “Orion-2” were launched in 1971 and 1973 by the
spatial station Salyut-1 and the Soyuz-13 spacecraft. From 1973-1978 he
directed the laboratory of astronomy at Garni, where more than 40
Soviet astronauts had their pre-flight training. He went back to Biurakan
in 1978 as head of the laboratory of exo-atmospheric astronomy until
1992 and in 1979 he headed the chair of construction of spatial devices
at his alma mater, the Polytechnic Institute. From 1992-2004 he was
director of the Institute of Astronomy in Garni.
Besides
his many scientific achievements, Gurzadyan was also a much-sought
essayist from the 1980s. He published many reflections on philosophical
and current issues in the press, which were collected in a dozen of
books.
An
emeritus worker of science since 1975, he was elected full member of
the Academy of Sciences in 1986. He passed away on February 22, 2014, in
Yerevan, at the age of ninety-two.
