Gerard P. Kuiper and the Rise of Modern Planetary Science

Astronomer Gerard P. Kuiper ignored the traditional boundaries of his subject. Using telescopes and the laboratory, he made the solar system a familiar, intriguing place. “It is not astronomy,” complained his colleagues, and they were right. Kuiper had created a new discipline we now call planetary science.

Kuiper was an acclaimed astronomer of binary stars and white dwarfs when he accidentally discovered that Titan, the massive moon of Saturn, had an atmosphere. This turned our understandi...