Otto Lyudvigovich Struve (Russian: Отто Людвигович Струве; 12 August 1897 – 6 April 1963[2]) was a Russian-American astronomer of Baltic German origin.

His father was a member of the extensive political and scientific Struve family of Baltic Germans who were prominent in 19th-century Russia.

His astronomy experience started early: from the age of eight, he was accompanying father in the telescope tower and from 10 carried out some minor observations, despite his fear of the dark spaces.

After having received home education, at the age of 12, Struve started attending a school in Kharkov and showed mathematical talents.

Otto was the first child of the Struve family in Russia who attended a Russian-speaking rather than German-speaking school, and was bilingual in German and Russian.

In June 1914, Struve took part in preparations for observation of a total solar eclipse (August 21, 1914) and later used that experience and results for his master's degree work defended in 1919 at Kharkov University.

[5][6][7][8] Struve entered the Imperial Kharkov University in 1915, at the time of political unrest and wars in Russia.

Whereas his mother and sister chose to return to Kharkov, on November 16–17, 1920, Otto followed the escaping Wrangel's Army.

[5][8][9] During the year and a half that Otto spent in exile in Gallipoli and later in Constantinople, he became an impoverished refugee, eating at relief agencies and taking any job he could find.

However, the widow of Hermann, Eva Struve, contacted Paul Guthnick, her late husband's successor at the Berlin-Babelsberg Observatory.

[5][8][11][12] In late 1921, Struve began working as a stellar spectroscopy assistant at Yerkes with a monthly salary of $75, starting with taking a training course.

Five months after arrival, he made his first discovery of a pulsating star at Gamma Ursae Minoris and wrote an article on it in September 1922.

[8][14][15] As early as December 1923, Struve defended his PhD thesis on short-period spectroscopic double stars at the University of Chicago.

Frost helped him in waiving some required PhD examinations, e.g. in French and German, stating that Struve had done ample reading of scientific literature back in Russia, and was fluent in those languages.

While in Cambridge, Struve mostly worked on interstellar matter; he also went on a short trip to Leiden to meet Jan Oort.

[8][19] Struve was a highly successful administrator who brought fame to Yerkes Observatory and rebuilt the astronomy department of the University of Chicago.

In particular, he gradually renewed the scientific staff, dismissing stagnated permanent researchers who were not making significant contributions to science but were occupying the faculty positions.

Struve used to arrive first and leave last from the observatory, taking notes on working hours of staff which he then used in his bureaucratic moves.

After World War II, he also invited a number of leading European researchers, such as Pol Swings, Jan Oort (father of radio astronomy), Marcel Minnaert, H. C. van der Hulst and Albrecht Unsöld.

[18] As most of them were foreigners, their appointment met strong opposition from the science officials for various reasons, such as taking jobs from Americans during the Great Depression.

For example, Chandrasekhar spent his entire career as a scientist and administrator at the University of Chicago, assisting Struve and eventually replacing him as president of the American Astronomical Society (from 1949) and as the Editor in Chief of the Astrophysical Journal.

[8][18] Struve's belief in the widespread existence of life and intelligence in the Universe stemmed from his studies of slow-rotating stars.

Many stars, including the Sun, spin at a much lower rate than was predicted by contemporary theories of early stellar evolution.

The reason for this, claimed Struve, was that they were surrounded by planetary systems which had carried away much of the stars' original angular momentum.

I believe that science has reached the point where it is necessary to take into account the action of intelligent beings, in addition to the classical laws of physics.Struve had a younger brother and two sisters, all of whom died in Russia in their youth: Werner (1903–1920), Yadviga (1901–1924) and Elizabeth (1911–1920).

[8][30] Even after marriage, Struve continued working days and nights, something that his non-scientist wife could not fully accept.

[33] In 1930s, they met again at Yerkes Observatory and reanalyzed observations of the complex multiple star system Zeta Cancri by their grandfather Otto Wilhelm von Struve.

[8][35] During his early years at Yerkes, he developed the practice of looking with one eye into the microscope of a micrograph instrument and with another at the nearby numerical table.

Frost, Struve and George Van Biesbroeck formed a "Committee for Relief of Russian Astronomers" and organized sending packages of food and clothing.

Around that time, the wife of his deputy George Van Biesbroeck wrote a letter to Belgium, mentioning how Yerkes Observatory was being run by two Europeans.