Word: shapley
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...considered it one of the older galaxies; Sir James Jeans deduced from its shape that the Milky Way (which includes the Earth) is probably in an advanced stage of senility. But this week one of the world's most eminent authorities on galaxies, Harvard's Professor Harlow Shapley, suggested that Sir James had it all backward. According to Shapley's theory, the Milky Way is in the first, not the last, stage of evolution...
...Professor Shapley has noticed that spiral galaxies have many star clusters and star clouds - a sign of youth, not age. A star cluster, he observed, is unstable. As it rotates, its stars, revolving at various speeds around the cluster's nucleus, are torn apart by "shearing forces" which break up the cluster and disperse the stars evenly through the galaxy...
...Shapley further observed that spiral galaxies (especially the Milky Way) have many unstable, relatively short-lived supergiant stars, another sign of immaturity. Because spherical galaxies, on the other hand, have a smooth, stable structure with few star clusters and no supergiants, he concluded that a galaxy evolves from a spiral to a ball, not vice versa...
...Shapley, who is president of the American Astronomical Society, of the National Society of the Sigma Xi, and of the Science Clubs of America, was picked in consideration of his many valuable contributions to the science of astronomy and especially of his work in the measurement of the vast distances necessary for the determination of the nature and extent of our galaxy, as well as those of other galaxies external to ours...
...Shapley now joins the ranks of Edison, Marconi, Orville Wright, Einstein, and Charles F. Kettering, who have also received the medal. At present, shapley is working with galaxies, star clusters, and astronomical data on the formation of the earth's crust...