Remembering James B. Pollack, the legendary NASA astrophysicist wth a Mars crater named after him

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James B. Pollack, born on July 9, 1938, was one of the most accomplished and established astrophysicist associated with NASA. His contributions in nuclear physics have helped generations of physicists with their discoveries in this field.

Pollack was raised in Jewish family that was involved in women's garment business but this didn't restrain him from being a valedictorian in his high school and completing his graduation from Princeton University in 1960.

He also completed his masters in nuclear physics and his PhD from University of California and Harvard University, respectively.

Pollacks notable research in Planetology

Pollack was always doing informative research on the Solar System and all its planets. A lot of his findings contributed in learning the formation of all the Jovian planets, which are Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune and Uranus.

His experiment of examining the scattering radar signals around Saturn's rings also helped scientists discover that most of the rings are made of ice particles.

His research also led to the determination of internal heat budget of the giant planets by analyzing the particulate sizes of the atmosphere of Saturn's moon, Titan.

Apart from this, he also assisted NASA in showing the complexity of the Earths complexity and fragility when it comes to its life- support system.

After studying Earths atmosphere, he drew the possibility of the greenhouse effect, ozone depletion and climate change leading to sulfuric rains and searing high temperature, replicating the weather conditions of Venus.

Mars crater named after Pollack

One of the most notable honors Pollack has achieved in his life is a crater on Mars being named after him.

The crater, named Pollack, is an impact crater present on the southeast region on Mars, which measure up to 96 kilometers in diameter.

This honor was bestowed upon him due to his research on the climate of Mars with the help of the data collected by the Mariner 9 spacecraft and the Viking mission.

Because of this research, he also received the Gerard P. Kuiper Prize for devoting his life to this ground-breaking study.

Pollack introduced the term nuclear winter

Pollack, along with a team of five scientists, introduced the concept of nuclear winter to the world. His study on this topic led to a major disagreement between scientists all over the world about whether a nuclear war could set an eternal chill on a global level.

Though it was known that the scientist has overestimated the concept of nuclear winter, his article in the topic made it possible for other scientists to explore and study this phenomenon even more.

A mentor for young scientists

Pollack lived a controversial life, being openly gay during the conservative times of 30s but for his colleagues at NASA, he was still an inspiration. During his time at NASA's Ames Research Center, he not only became a great astrophysicist, but a remarkable teacher as well.

The astrophysicist was responsible for bring a lot of bright, young scientists at Ames and molding their minds to achieve greatness. A lot of these scientists have had distinguished careers and contributed a lot to Ames with their research.

This work also led to him honored with NASA's Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal as a lot of scientists based their studies around the Pollacks findings about the Solar System.

Though the his demise in 1994 due to spinal cancer was a major blow for the field of astrophysics and planetology, his studies and articles have continued to make it possible for scientists to explore our Solar System and the concept of creating living conditions on Mars.