Thornton Page
Astronomer; Robertson Panel member and NASA scientist
- Born
- 1913, New Haven, Connecticut
- Died
- January 2, 1996
- Education
- Yale; Rhodes Scholar, D.Phil. Oxford (1938)
- Posts
- Johns Hopkins Operations Research Office; Wesleyan University; NASA; Naval Research Laboratory
- Space work
- Co-investigator, Apollo 16 far-ultraviolet camera
Astronomer who served on the CIA's 1953 UFO panel and later co-ran the far-ultraviolet camera that went to the Moon on Apollo 16.
What is Thornton Page known for?
Thornton Leigh Page was an American astronomer. A Yale graduate and Rhodes Scholar, he studied astrophysics at Oxford and taught at the University of Chicago and Wesleyan University. His studies of the masses of galaxies contributed early evidence for what is now called dark matter.
In 1953 he was deputy director of the Johns Hopkins Operations Research Office, and the CIA chose him for the Robertson Panel as an expert in radar and electronics. The panel concluded that UFO reports did not show a threat to national security.
He later joined NASA's Manned Spacecraft Center in Houston and was co-investigator with George Carruthers on the far-ultraviolet camera used on the Moon during Apollo 16 in 1972. He retired from the Naval Research Laboratory in 1976 and died in 1996.
Member of the CIA's 1953 Robertson Panel on UFOs.
Mentioned on these pages
- Rabbit holeThe Robertson Panel
Sources
- Bulletin of the AAS, 'Thornton L. Page (1913–1996)'Reference
- Gerald K. Haines, 'CIA's Role in the Study of UFOs, 1947-90', Studies in Intelligence (CIA)Primary text
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