Zhang Jiaxiang

Background

Zhang Jiaxiang, astronomer, was born in October 1932 in Nanjing, Jiangsu province.

Career

He discovered asteroid (5384) 1957 Virginia (credited as C-H Chang). In 1951, he first joined the Purple Mountain Observatory as a technician, supervised by director Zhang Yuzhe. In 1957, Zhang Yuzhe and Zhang Jiaxiang worked together and published a paper discussing the orbit of artificial satellite.

In total, they have discovered more than 150 internationally numbered new minor planets and four comets.

In the 1990s, he accurately predicted a series of collision times between 19 comet nuclei and Jupiter, based on his self-established numerical model of the solar system dynamics. In the most recent 10 years, he was named as the chief scientist, leading a project of “Construction of Near Earth Object Telescope，” which has been successfully completed.

To recognize his contribution in his field, Harvard Smithsonian Observatory in Boston named an asteroid they discovered “Jiaxiang” in 1991.

Achievements

• From 1965 to 1972, Professor Zhang led a research group to accomplish the project of orbit determination of the first Chinese artificial satellite and thereafter the systematic studies of the orbit of Chinese synchronous satellite.