Neugebauer, Gerry (1932– )

German-born US astronomer whose work has been crucial in establishing the study of infrared astronomy. From 1969 he has been closely involved with NASA's interplanetary missions and the design of new infrared telescopes.

Neugebauer was born in Göttingen, Germany, and studied at Cornell University, New York, and at the California Institute of Technology, where he spent his academic career from 1962. He became professor in 1970 and director of the Palomar Observatory in 1981. At NASA his projects included work on the infrared radiometers carried aboard the Mars missions of the Mariner spacecraft. In 1976 he became the US principal scientist on the Infrared Astronomical Satellite.

During the mid-1960s Neugebauer and his colleagues began to establish the first infrared map of the sky. Some 20,000 new infrared sources were detected and most of these did not coincide with known optical sources. Among the brightest and strangest of these sources is in the Orion nebula, and is known as the Becklin–Neugebauer object after Neugebauer and US astrophysicist Eric Becklin. Carbon monoxide is blowing outwards from it at a high velocity. The object is thought to be a very young star.