R. A. Rossiter

Biography

Richard Alfred Rossiter was born in 1886. He was educated at the University of Michigan, where he worked for most of his career at the observatory. He studied binary stars, variable stars, and galactic rotation. His first scientific publication on the effect of radial velocity distortion due to stellar rotation was published in 1924 based on observations of the Beta Lyrae system.

Key discoveries

• Rossiter–McLaughlin effect (1924) – change in the profile of spectral lines and radial velocities during the passage of one star across the disk of another
• caused by the rotation of the eclipsed star. Allows determining the angle between the star's rotation axis and the companion's orbital plane
• critically important for studying the architecture of exoplanetary systems.