Jan Hendrik Oort is a famous
Dutch astronomer,
and a
pioneer in
radio astronomy.
He was born in
Franeker in 1900, and attended
the
University of Groningen, and later
Leiden University.
In the 1920s, in cooperation with his
colleagues, Oort established the theory of
the Milky Way's rotation, as well as
deductions on its mass, and our Sun's distance
from the center.
Oort is most widely known for his work in comet theory,
however. In 1950, he proposed that a cloud of cometary
material surrounds our solar system at an enormous
distance, a concept that is now generally accepted.
This cloud bears his name, The Oort Cloud.