Brett J. Gladman
Brett James Gladman is a Canadian astronomer and a full professor at the University of British Columbia's Department of Physics and Astronomy in Vancouver, British Columbia. He holds the Canada Research Chair in Planetary Astronomy.
Career
Gladman is best known for his work in dynamical astronomy in the Solar System. He has studied the transport of meteorites between planets, the delivery of meteoroids from the main asteroid belt, and the possibility of the transport of life via this mechanism, known as panspermia. He also studies planet formation, especially the puzzle of how the giant planets came to be.
He is discoverer or co-discoverer of many astronomical bodies in the solar system, asteroids, Kuiper Belt comets, and many moons of the giant planets:
- Uranus: Caliban, Sycorax, Prospero, Setebos, Stephano, and Ferdinand
- Saturn: A dozen satellites in several groups, each named after a theme of Canadian Inuit gods, French deities, and Norse gods
- Neptune: The satellite Neso
- Jupiter: Discovery and co-discovery of 6 moons
Gladman is a member of the Canada France Ecliptic Plane Survey (CFEPS), and OSSOS survey which has detected and tracked the world's largest sample of well-understood Kuiper Belt comets, including unusual objects like Buffy = 2004 XR190 and Drac == 2008 KV42, the first transneptunian object on a retrograde orbit around the Sun.
Honors and awards
Gladman was awarded the H. C. Urey Prize by the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society in 2002. Asteroid 7638 Gladman is named in his honor. In 2008-2011 he served as member and chair of the Science Advisory Council of the Canada-France-Hawaii Telescope on Mauna Kea in Hawaii. He was awarded a Killam research fellowship in 2015.