Martin A. Pomerantz

Martin Arthur Pomerantz (December 17, 1916 – October 26, 2008) was an American physicist who served as director of the Bartol Research Institute and who had been a leader in developing Antarctic astronomy.

[5] Pomerantz was born and raised in New York City, and graduated from Manual Training High School in Brooklyn.

[4] Pomerantz' scientific papers and documents have been archived at the American Institute of Physics[9] and at the University of Delaware.

The cosmic ray experiments indicated that the Sun's magnetic strength was of the same magnitude as the Earth's; this result is now well-established by many subsequent measurements.

The South Pole is at an altitude of nearly 3,000 metres (9,800 ft), so the astronomical seeing should be comparable to other high-altitude observatories; the extreme cold in Antarctica also corresponds to relatively little water vapor in the atmosphere there, which is a particular advantage for infrared astronomy.

Finally, the South Pole lies at the top of a very deep, nearly permanent ice sheet that has been used to advantage in experiments such as the IceCube Neutrino Detector.

[15][16] In 1979, Pomerantz, along with Eric Fossat and Gerard Grec, conducted the first Antarctic observations by coupling a small telescope with a "sodium vapor resonance cell.

"[2] The observations were not formally authorized; as Pomerantz later described it, "We had to find a way to convince people that the South Pole was the place for astronomy.

Their results greatly extended the knowledge of the Sun's vibrational frequency spectrum, and they marked the beginning of an extensive astronomy program at the South Pole.

In 1999, Norman F. Ness wrote that [18] Pomerantz had "developed and operated instruments in Antarctica for observing similar sun-quake signals in the newly emerging field of helioseismology, a discipline in which he was one of the true pioneers."

[19] He received the Distinguished Public Servant Award from the National Science Foundation in 1987 and the NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal in 1990.