Tom Gehrels papers

Tom Gehrels was born Anton M. J. Gehrels in Haarlemmermeer, the Netherlands on February 21, 1925. As a teenager, after Nazi Germany invaded the Netherlands in 1939, Gehrels became active in the Dutch Resistance. He later escaped to England where he received further training and was sent back by parachute to his native country as an organizer for Britain’s Special Operations Executive (SOE).

After the war he attended the University of Leiden where he graduated with a degree in physics and astronomy in 1951. He continued his education at the University of Chicago where he obtained his doctorate in astronomy and astrophysics in 1956. Dr. Gehrels was a research associate at Indiana University and McDonald Observatory for five years where he pioneered the first photometric system for asteroids. In 1961 he joined Dr. Gerard Kuiper at the University of Arizona where he was one of the first members of the Lunar and Planetary Laboratory and a faculty member of the Department of Planetary Sciences and Astronomy.

In 1980 Dr. Gehrels started the Spacewatch Project (a program to find dangerous asteroids and to keep them from hitting the earth), this program still uses the telescopes at Steward Observatory and Kitt Peak to survey the sky for asteroids and comets. Gehrels remained at the University for the next 50 years until his death in 2011.