[4] He received the lifetime achievement award in planetary science, the Gerard P. Kuiper Prize, in 2007.

He was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1940 and moved to Brooklyn as a child, graduating from high school there at age 16.

He received his Ph.D. of Physics from Harvard University in 1966, focusing on geophysical fluid dynamics.

[5] He has been a leader in the investigation of planetary weather and climate, particularly on giant planets and the Earth, for nearly five decades.

[7] Among many other awards, he received the Gerard P. Kuiper Prize for outstanding lifetime achievement in planetary science in 2007, the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 1981 for his work on the Voyager program, and was elected as a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1997.