Otto Struve

Struve should not be confused with his grandfather, Otto Wilhelm von Struve (1819-1905).

Otto Struve (August 12 1897 – April 6 1963) was a Russian astronomer. He was the grandson of Otto Wilhelm von Struve and the great-grandson of Friedrich Wilhelm von Struve.

Otto Struve

Struve's education at the University of Kharkov was interrupted by World War I and the Russian Civil War, which left him a refugee in Turkey. He went to the United States in 1921, obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Chicago and eventually became head of the astronomy department there. In 1932, he was made joint director of the university's Yerkes Observatory and McDonald Observatory (which he founded and where a telescope is named after him). Struve may be regarded as the father of modern SETI. He was one of the few eminent astronomers in the pre-Space Age era to publicly express a belief that extraterrestrial intelligence was abundant.