Allan R. Sandage, 84, who spent his life measuring the universe, becoming the most influential astronomer of his generation, died Saturday at his home in San Gabriel, Calif., said the Carnegie Observatories, where he had spent his whole professional career.
Over more than six decades, Sandage wrote more than 500 papers, ranging across the cosmos, covering the evolution and behavior of stars, the birth of the Milky Way galaxy, the age of the universe and the discovery of the first quasar, not to mention the Hubble constant, a famously contested number that measures the rate of expansion of the universe.
Even after retiring from the Carnegie Observatories and becoming ill, he never stopped working; he published a paper on variable stars in June.
The New York Times
