Günter W Lugmair, Ph.D.

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(1940 - 2021)
https://news.idw-online.de/2021/04/14/the-cosmophysicist-guenter-w-lugmair-passed-away/
Günter W. Lugmair was born in 1940 in Wels in Austria. He studied physics and obtained his doctorate in 1968 at the University of Vienna. Already between 1965 and 1968 he worked as an assistant at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz. After nearly thirty years of scientific research at the University of California in San Diego, where he has held a professorship since 1984, in 1996 he became Director of the Department of Cosmochemistry at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry. Since his retirement in 2005, he re-directs his research group in San Diego.

Professor Lugmair has made significant contributions to understanding the genesis of the solar system and has profoundly influenced the evolution of isotope geochemistry. In 1974, he developed a mass spectrometric method for determining the age of lunar and meteorite specimens, which is now considered one of the most reliable and widely used techniques Dating terrestrial rocks and explaining their history. Later, his efforts focused on the search for today missing radionuclides and their derivatives. He was able to prove the former existence of a certain samarium isotope in meteorites and thereby answer questions about the early history of our solar system. Günter W. Lugmair made important contributions to the formation processes of chemical elements in stars by determining the isotopic composition with unprecedented precision. He succeeded in determining the age of our solar system very precisely at 4.57 billion years. He caused a sensation in 1998 with evidence of the extraterrestrial origin of the "iridium anomaly": this is considered an indication of the so-called impact hypothesis, which traces the extinction of many large animal species about 65 million years ago to the consequences of a meteorite impact.

During his time in Mainz, Günter Lugmair promoted the long-standing successful planetary research of the Department of Cosmochemistry. In particular, Mars research is highlighted here: Since January 2004, Alpha X-ray spectrometers (APXS), developed and built in Lugmair's department, are on board the two NASA rovers "Spirit" and "Opportunity" on Mars. These devices have since provided spectacular data on chemical composition and evidence of the water-rich past of today's desert planet.
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