K

• Born in Germany.
• He discovered that the planets move around the Sun in ellipses, not circles.
• He drew up the three laws of planetary motion.
• He also prepared a new set of planetary tables.

Gerard Kuiper (1905-1973)

• Born in Holland.
• He believed that the planets were built up gradually from a cloud of dust and gas asssociated with the Sun.
• He discovered that Titan, a satellite of Saturn, has an atmosphere.
• He also discovered Miranda, a satellite of Uranus, and Nereid, a satellite of Neptune.
• He prepared a detailed lunar photographic atlas for space researchers.
• He determined correctly that the Martian atmosphere is mainly carbon dioxide.

Leonid Kulik (1883-1942)

• Born in Estonia.
• He studied the site of the 1908 devastation in Siberia, feeling certain that it was caused by a meteorite, but finding no evidence that it was.