Shklovsky, Iosif Samuilovich definition of Shklovsky, Iosif Samuilovich in the Free Online Encyclopedia.

Shklovsky, Iosif Samuilovich (yôs`ĭf səm

ēl`əvĭch shklŏf`skē), 1916–85, Soviet astronomer. He was head of the department of radio-astronomy at the Sternberg Astronomical Institute, Moscow, and professor of astronomy at Moscow State Univ. He showed, in 1946, that the radio wave radiations from the sun emanate from the ionized layers of its corona, and he developed a mathematical method for discriminating between thermal and nonthermal radio waves in the Milky Way. He is noted especially for his suggestion that the radiation from the Crab Nebula Crab Nebula, diffuse gaseous nebula in the constellation Taurus; cataloged as NGC 1952 and M1, the first object recorded in Charles Messier's catalog of nonstellar objects.
..... Click the link for more information. is due to synchrotron radiation synchrotron radiation, in physics, electromagnetic radiation emitted by high-speed electrons spiraling along the lines of force of a magnetic field (see magnetism ).
..... Click the link for more information. , in which unusually energetic electrons twist through magnetic fields at speeds close to that of light. Shklovsky proposed that cosmic rays from supernova explosions within 300 light years of the sun have been responsible for some of the mass extinctions of life on earth. His works include Physics of the Solar Corona (1966), Intelligent Life in the Universe (with Carl Sagan, 1968), and Supernovae (1969).