Vorontsov-Vel'iaminov, Boris Aleksandrovich (1904-1994)

Russian astronomer and astrophysicist. In 1930, independently of Swiss astronomer Robert Trumpler, Vorontsov-Vel'iaminov demonstrated the occurrence of the absorption of stellar light by interstellar dust. As a result, it became possible to determine astronomical distances and, in turn, the size of the universe more accurately.

Vorontsov-Vel'iaminov was professor at Moscow from 1934. Analysing the Hertzsprung-Russell diagram, with reference to the evolution of stars, he made particularly important contributions to the study of the blue-white star sequence, which was the subject of a book he published in 1947.

In 1959 Vorontsov-Vel'iaminov recorded and listed the positions of 350 interacting galaxies clustered so closely that they seem to perturb each other slightly in structure. Besides this catalogue, he compiled a more extensive catalogue of galaxies in 1962, in which he listed and described more than 30,000 examples.