George Herbig

George Herbig

George Howard Herbig (born January 2, 1920) is an astronomer at the University of Hawaii Institute for Astronomy. He is perhaps best known for the discovery of Herbig-Haro objects.

Herbig received his Ph.D in 1948 at the University of California, Berkeley; his dissertation is entitled A Study of Variable Stars in Nebulosity. His specialty is stars at an early stage of evolution (a class of intermediate mass pre–main sequence stars are named Herbig Ae/Be stars after him) and the interstellar medium. He is perhaps best known for his discovery, with Guillermo Haro, of the Herbig-Haro objects; bright patches of nebulosity excited by bipolar outflow from a star being born. Herbig has also made prominent contributions to the field of diffuse interstellar band (DIB) research, especially through a series of nine articles published between 1963 and 1995 entitled "The diffuse interstellar bands."