HUGGINS, lifig'Inz, SIR William, English astronomer: b. London, 7 Feb. 1824; d. there, 12 May 1910. He was educated at City of Lon don School, and in 1856 erected an observatory at Tulse Hill, in northeastern Surrey. When in 1859 Professor Kirchoff of the University of Heidelberg announced the true interpretation of the dark Fraunhofer lines in the solar spectrum, Huggins at once saw the possibility of using his practical knowledge of chemistry and physics in the service of astronomy. With W. A. Miller, professor of chemistry at King's College, Lon don, he at once set about the task of construct ing a star-spectroscope. The two then began the observation of stellar spectra. A full state ment of their results was read before the Royal Society in 1864, the essence of the statement being, in Huggins' own words, that the chem istry of the solar system prevails, essentially at least, wherever a star twinkles. In August 1864 Huggins directed his star-spectroscope toward a planetary nebula in Draco and found its spec trum to be a monochromatic one, thus proving that the nebula consists of a luminous gas. In 1868 he was able to announce to the Royal Society the results of his first measurements of the motion of stars in the line of sight. He
began his observations of comet spectra with that of Winnecke's comet in 1868, and in 1868-69 made spectroscopic observations of the solar prominences. About 1876 he resumed his abandoned efforts to photograph stellar spectra, using the gelatine dry plate process then re cently introduced, and this time he was com pletely successful. His photographs of the in visible ultra-violet portions of stellar spectra have proved extremely valuable, providing, for example, the only reliable data for determining the relative ages of the stars. He was awarded successively the Royal, Rumford and Copley medals of the Royal Society; was president of the Royal Astronomical Society 1876-78 and of the Royal Society 1900-06, was created K.C.B. in 1897, and was (1902) one of the original recipients of the Order of Merit. In his wife (née Margaret Murray) whom he married in 1875, he had a valued coadjutor, and with her published in 1900 a valuable 'Atlas of Represen tative Stellar Spectra.'