Ewen A. Whitaker is a British-born astronomer who specialized in Lunar studies. He was an astronomer at the Royal Greenwich Observatory, becaming the director of the Lunar Section of the British Astronomical Association. He then emigrated to the United States and joined the staff of the Yerkes Observatory. In 1960 he left Yerkes, along with Gerard P. Kuiper, to join the staff of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory at the University of Arizona, eventually becoming research scientist emeritus. He worked on several NASA missions, and was successful in locating the landing site of the Surveyor 3. (This was used to determine the landing site for the Apollo 12 mission.) He has been considered by some the world's leading expert on mapping the Moon and lunar nomenclature. He was a member of the IAU's Task Group for Lunar Nomenclature. In 1999 he published a book on the history of lunar mapping and nomenclature, titled "Mapping and Naming the Moon" He lives in Tucson, Arizona with his wife, Beryl.
Bibliography
- Melosh, H.J., and Whitaker, E.A.; "Lunar Crater Chains," Nature, 369: 713, 1994.)
- Ewen A. Whitaker, "Mapping and Naming the Moon", Cambridge University Press, 1999, ISBN 0-521-62248-4.
- G.L. Gutschewski, D.C. Kinsler & E.A. Whitaker, "Atlas and Gazetteer of the Near Side of the Moon", NASA SP-241.
- Gerald P Kuiper, Ewen A Whitaker, Robert G Strom, John W Fountain, and Stephen M Larson, "Consolidated Lunar Atlas", Lunar and Planetary Institute, 2005.
- David Clow & Ewen A. Whitaker, "A Pinpoint on the Ocean of Storms: Finding the Target for Apollo 12." QUEST - The History of Spaceflight Quarterly. Vol. 10 No. 4, Fall 2003.
Awards and honors
- Awarded the Goodacre medal, 1982.
