View source for Jan Oort

{{Short description|Dutch astronomer (1900–1992)}}
{{redirect|Oort|other people with the surname|Oort (surname)|the Oort cloud|Oort cloud}}
{{Infobox scientist
|name              = Jan Oort
|image             = Jan_Oort_1970.jpg
|image_size        =
|caption           = Oort in 1970
|birth_name        = Jan Hendrik Oort
|birth_date        = {{birth date|1900|4|28|df=y}}
|birth_place       = [[Franeker]], [[Friesland]], [[Netherlands]]
|death_date        = {{death date and age|1992|11|5|1900|4|28|df=y}}
|death_place       = [[Leiden]], [[South Holland]], [[Netherlands]]
|residence         =
|citizenship       =
|ethnicity         =
|field             = [[Astronomy]]
|work_institutions =
|alma_mater        =
|doctoral_advisor  = [[Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn]]
|doctoral_students =
|known_for         = {{Plainlist|
* [[Oort cloud]]
* [[Dark matter]]
* [[Oort constants]]
}}
|author_abbrev_bot =
|author_abbrev_zoo =
|influences        =
|influenced        =
|prizes            = [[Vetlesen Prize]] {{small|(1966)}}<br>[[Kyoto Prize]] {{small|(1987)}}
|religion          =
|footnotes         =
|signature         =
}}

'''Jan Hendrik Oort''' {{post-nominals|post-noms=[[Foreign Member of the Royal Society|ForMemRS]]}}<ref name="frs">{{Cite journal | last1 = Van De Hulst | first1 = H. C. | author-link = Hendrik C. van de Hulst| doi = 10.1098/rsbm.1994.0042 | title = Jan Hendrik Oort. 28 April 1900 – 5 November 1992 | journal = [[Biographical Memoirs of Fellows of the Royal Society]] | volume = 40 | pages = 320–26 | year = 1994 | doi-access =  }}</ref> ({{IPAc-en|ˈ|ɔr|t}} or {{IPAc-en|ˈ|ʊər|t}};<ref>{{OED|Oort}}</ref> 28 April 1900 – 5 November 1992) was a Dutch [[astronomer]] who made significant contributions to the understanding of the [[Milky Way]] and who was a pioneer in the field of [[radio astronomy]].<ref name=Bio>{{cite journal|author=Woltjer, Lodewijk|author-link=Lodewijk Woltjer|title=Obituary: Jan H. Oort|journal=Physics Today|date=November 1993|volume=46|issue=11|pages=104–05|doi=10.1063/1.2809110|bibcode=1993PhT....46k.104W|doi-access=free}}</ref> ''[[The New York Times]]'' called him "one of the century's foremost explorers of the universe";<ref name=NYT>{{cite news|last=Wilford|first=John|title=Jan H. Oort, Dutch Astronomer In Forefront of Field, Dies at 92|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1992/11/12/us/jan-h-oort-dutch-astronomer-in-forefront-of-field-dies-at-92.html|access-date=30 May 2014|newspaper=[[New York Times]]|date=12 November 1992}}</ref> the [[European Space Agency]] website describes him as "one of the greatest astronomers of the 20th century" and states that he "revolutionised astronomy through his ground-breaking discoveries."<ref name=ESA>{{cite web|title=Jan Hendrik Oort: Comet Pioneer|work=European Space Agency |url=http://www.esa.int/About_Us/Welcome_to_ESA/ESA_history/Jan_Hendrik_Oort_Comet_pioneer|publisher=[[European Space Agency]]|access-date=30 May 2014 |author1=Esa }}</ref> In 1955, Oort's name appeared in ''[[Life (magazine)|Life]]'' magazine's list of the 100 most famous living people.<ref name=JO>{{cite book|last=Katgert-Merkelijn |first=J. |title=Jan Oort |chapter=Jan Oort, astronomer : Catalogue of an exhibition in Leiden University library, April 20 - May 27, 2000 |hdl=1887/77628 |year=2000 |publisher=Universiteitsbibliotheek Leiden }}</ref> He has been described as "putting the Netherlands in the forefront of postwar astronomy".<ref name= NYT />

Oort determined that the Milky Way rotates and overturned the idea that the [[Sun]] was at its center.{{citation needed|date=November 2025}} He also analyzed the vertical motions of stars near the Sun, using this data to estimate the local gravitational field.  He calculated how much mass must be present to account for the stellar motions perpendicular to the Galactic plane. Comparing this mass to the visible stars and gas, in 1932, he wrote, "This leads to the conclusion that there must be considerable amounts of invisible matter." The following year, [[Fritz Zwicky]] called this invisible matter “dunkle Materie”, German for [[dark matter]]. It is now believed that dark matter makes up approximately 84.5% of the total mass in the [[Universe]], and its gravitational pull is responsible for "the clustering of stars into galaxies and galaxies into connecting strings of galaxies".<ref name= NYT /><ref name=DM>{{cite web|last=Bertschinger|first=Edmund|title=Dark Matter Cosmological|url=http://ned.ipac.caltech.edu/level5/ESSAYS/Bertschinger/bertschinger.html|access-date=30 May 2014}}</ref> 
However, Oort's data have been challenged<ref>{{Citation | author = G. Gilmore, W. Rosemary, K. Konrad |date=1999 | title = Kinematics, chemistry, and structure of the Galaxy | journal = Annual Rev. Astron. Astrophys. | volume = 27 | pages = 555-627 |bibcode = 1989ARA&A..27..555G }}</ref> and his discovery{{which?|date=November 2025}} may have been spurious{{what?|date=November 2025}}.{{citation needed|date=November 2025}}  

Oort discovered the [[galactic halo]], a group of stars orbiting the Milky Way but outside the main disk.<ref>{{Citation | author = J. H. Oort |date=June 1924 | title = On a Possible Relation between Globular Clusters and Stars of High Velocity | journal = Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A | volume = 10 | issue = 6 | pages = 256–60 | pmid = 16586938 | doi = 10.1073/pnas.10.6.256 | last2 = Arias | first2 = B | last3 = Rojo | first3 = M | last4 = Massa | first4 = M | postscript = . | pmc=1085635|bibcode = 1924PNAS...10..256O |doi-access=free }}</ref> Additionally Oort is responsible  for a number of important insights about comets, including the realization that their orbits "implied there was a lot more solar system than the region occupied by the planets."<ref name= NYT />

The [[Oort cloud]], the [[Oort constants]], [[Oort limit|Oort Limit]], an [[impact crater]] on [[Pluto]] ([[Oort (crater)|Oort]]), and the asteroid [[1691 Oort]] were all named after him.

==Early life and education==

Oort was born in [[Franeker]], a small town in the Dutch province of [[Friesland]], on April 28, 1900. He was the second son of Abraham Hermanus Oort,<ref>[https://allefriezen.nl/zoeken/deeds/20b424a2-a9dc-42d3-9fbd-4dcf2ea1d4e1 Entry of Jan Oorts birth in the official ''geboorteregister'' (civil registration) of the municipality of Franeker], 28 April 1900, at https://allefriezen.nl/</ref> a physician, who died on May 12, 1941, and Ruth Hannah Faber, who was the daughter of Jan Faber and Henrietta Sophia Susanna Schaaii, and who died on November 20, 1957. Both of his parents came from families of clergymen, with his paternal grandfather, a Protestant clergyman with liberal ideas, who "was one of the founders of the more liberal Church in Holland"<ref name=OHT>{{cite web|title=Oral History Transcript – Dr. Jan Hendrik Oort|url=http://www.aip.org/history/ohilist/4806.html|publisher=[[American Institute of Physics]]|access-date=30 May 2014}}</ref> and who "was one of the three people who made a new translation of the Bible into Dutch."<ref name= OHT /> The reference is to Henricus Oort (1836–1927), who was the grandson of a famous [[Rotterdam]] preacher and, through his mother, Dina Maria Blom, the grandson of theologian Abraham Hermanus Blom,  a "pioneer of modern biblical research".<ref name= OHT /> Several of Oort's uncles were pastors, as was his maternal grandfather. "My mother kept up her interests in that, at least in the early years of her marriage", he recalled. "But my father was less interested in Church matters."<ref name= OHT />

In 1903 Oort's parents moved to [[Oegstgeest]], near [[Leiden]], where his father took charge of the Endegeest Psychiatric Clinic.<ref name= Bio /> Oort's father, "was a medical director in a sanitorium for nervous illnesses. We lived in the director's house of the sanitorium, in a small forest which was very nice for the children, of course, to grow up in." Oort's younger brother, John, became a professor of plant diseases at the [[University of Wageningen]]. In addition to John, Oort had two younger sisters and an elder brother who died of diabetes when he was a student.<ref name= Bio />

Oort attended primary school in Oegstgeest and secondary school in Leiden, and in 1917 went to [[Groningen University]] to study physics. He later said that he had become interested in science and astronomy during his high-school years, and conjectured that his interest was stimulated by reading [[Jules Verne]].<ref name= Bio /> His one hesitation about studying pure science was the concern that it "might alienate one a bit from people in general", as a result of which "one might not develop the human factor sufficiently." But he overcame this concern and ended up discovering that his later academic positions, which involved considerable administrative responsibilities, afforded a good deal of opportunity for social contact.

Oort chose Groningen partly because a well known astronomer, [[Jacobus Cornelius Kapteyn]], was teaching there, although Oort was unsure whether he wanted to specialize in physics or astronomy. After studying with Kapteyn, Oort decided on astronomy. "It was the personality of Professor Kapteyn which decided me entirely", he later recalled. "He was quite an inspiring teacher and especially his elementary astronomy lectures were fascinating."<ref name= OHT /> Oort began working on research with Kapteyn early in his third year. According to Oort one professor at Groningen who had considerable influence on his education was physicist [[Frits Zernike]].

After taking his final exam in 1921, Oort was appointed assistant at Groningen, but in September 1922, he went to the [[United States]] to do graduate work at [[Yale]] and to serve as an assistant to [[Frank Schlesinger]] of the [[Yale Observatory]].<ref name= NYT />

==Career==
At Yale, Oort was responsible for making observations with the Observatory's [[zenith telescope]]. "I worked on the problem of latitude variation", he later recalled, "which is quite far away from the subjects I had so far been studying." He later considered his experience at Yale useful as he became interested in "problems of fundamental astronomy that [he] felt was capitalized on later, and which certainly influenced [his] future lectures in Leiden." Personally, he "felt somewhat lonesome in Yale", but also said that "some of my very best friends were made in these years in New Haven."<ref name="OHT" />

=== Early discoveries ===
In 1924, Oort returned to the Netherlands to work at [[Leiden University]], where he served as a research assistant, becoming Conservator in 1926, Lecturer in 1930, and Professor Extraordinary in 1935.<ref name= NYT /> In 1926, he received his doctorate from Groningen with a thesis on the properties of high-velocity stars. The next year, Swedish astronomer [[Bertil Lindblad]] proposed that the rate of rotation of stars in the outer part of the galaxy decreased with distance from the galactic core, and Oort, who later said that he believed it was his colleague [[Willem de Sitter]] who had first drawn his attention to Lindblad's work, realized that Lindblad was correct and that the truth of his proposition could be demonstrated observationally. Oort provided two formulae that described galactic rotation; the two constants that figured in these formulae are now known as "Oort's constants".<ref name= NYT /> Oort "argued that just as the outer planets appear to us to be overtaken and passed by the less distant ones in the solar system, so too with the stars if the Galaxy really rotated", according to the ''Oxford Dictionary of Scientists''.<ref name=OX>{{cite book|title=Oxford Dictionary of Scientists|date=1999|publisher=[[Oxford University Press]]|location=Oxford|isbn=0-19-280086-8|page=211|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AtngooiwXikC|access-date=2 June 2014}}</ref> He "was finally able to calculate, on the basis of the various stellar motions, that the Sun was some 30,000 light-years from the center of the Galaxy and took about 225 million years to complete its orbit. He also showed that stars lying in the outer regions of the galactic disk rotated more slowly than those nearer the center. The Galaxy does not therefore rotate as a uniform whole but exhibits what is known as 'differential rotation'."<ref name= OX2>{{cite book|title=Oxford Dictionary of Scientists|date=1999|publisher=Oxford University Press|location=Oxford|isbn=0-19-280086-8|page=411|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=AtngooiwXikC|access-date=2 June 2014}}</ref>

These early discoveries by Oort about the Milky Way overthrew the [[Kapteyn system]], named after his mentor, which had envisioned a galaxy that was symmetrical around the Sun. As Oort later noted, "Kapteyn and his co-workers had not realized that the absorption in the galactic plane was as bad as it turned out to be."<ref name= OHT /> Until Oort began his work, he later recalled, "the Leiden Observatory had been concentrating entirely on positional astronomy, meridian circle work and some proper motion work. But no astrophysics or anything that looked like that. No structure of the galaxy, no dynamics of the galaxy. There was no one else in Leiden who was interested in these problems in which I was principally interested, so the first years I worked more or less by myself in these projects. De Sitter was interested, but his main line of research was celestial mechanics; at that time the expanding universe had moved away from his direct interest."<ref name= OHT /> As the European Space Agency states, Oort "sh[ook] the scientific world by demonstrating that the Milky Way rotates like a giant '[[Breaking wheel|Catherine Wheel]]'." He showed that all the stars in the galaxy were "travelling independently through space, with those nearer the center rotating much faster than those further away."<ref name= ESA />

This breakthrough made Oort famous in the world of astronomy. In the early 1930s he received job offers from [[Harvard University|Harvard]] and [[Columbia University]], but chose to stay at Leiden, although he did spend half of 1932 at the [[Perkins Observatory]], in [[Delaware, Ohio|Delaware]], [[Ohio]].<ref name= NYT  />

In 1934, Oort became assistant to the director of [[Leiden Observatory]]; the next year he became General Secretary of the [[International Astronomical Union]] (IAU), a post he held until 1948; in 1937 he was elected to the [[Royal Academy]]. In 1939, he spent half a year in the U.S., and became interested in the [[Crab Nebula]], concluding in a paper, written with American astronomer [[Nicholas Mayall]], that it was the result of a [[supernova]] explosion.<ref name= NYT />

=== Nazi invasion of Netherlands ===
In 1940, [[Nazi Germany]] [[Battle of the Netherlands|invaded the Netherlands]]. Soon after, the [[Reichskommissariat Niederlande|occupying regime]] dismissed all Jewish professors from [[Leiden University]] and other universities. "Among the professors who were dismissed", Oort later recalled, "was a very famous … professor of law by the name of Meyers. On the day when he got the letter from the authorities that he could no longer teach his classes, the dean of the faculty of law went into his class … and delivered a speech in which he started by saying, 'I won't talk about his dismissal and I shall leave the people who did this, below us, but will concentrate on the greatness of the man dismissed by our aggressors.'"<ref name= OHT />

This speech (26 November 1940) made such an impression on all his students that on leaving the auditorium they defiantly sang the [[Wilhelmus|anthem of the Netherlands]] and went on strike. Oort was present for the lecture and was greatly impressed. This occasion formed the beginning of the active resistance in Holland. The speech by [[Rudolph Cleveringa]], the dean of the faculty of Law and former graduate student of professor Meijers, was widely circulated during the rest of the war by the resistance groups. Oort was in a little group of professors in Leiden who came together regularly and discussed the problems the university faced in view of the German occupation. Most of the members of this group were put in hostage camps soon after the speech by Cleveringa. Oort refused to collaborate with the occupiers, "and so we went down to live in the [[Rural area|country]] for the rest of the war." Resigning from the Royal Academy, from his professorial post at Leiden, and from his position at the Observatory, Oort took his family to Hulshorst, a quiet village in the province of [[Gelderland]], where they sat out the war. In Hulshorst, he began writing a book on stellar dynamics.<ref name= NYT /><ref name= OHT />

=== Oort's radio astronomy ===
[[File:JanOort.jpg|thumb|Oort by an image of the galaxy [[Messier 81]].]]
Before the war was over, he initiated, in collaboration with a [[Utrecht University]] student, [[Hendrik van de Hulst]], a project that eventually succeeded, in 1951, in detecting the 21-centimeter radio emission from interstellar hydrogen spectral line at radio frequencies. Oort and his colleagues also made the first investigation of the central region of the Galaxy, and discovered that "the 21-centimeter radio emission passed un-absorbed through the gas clouds that had hidden the center from optical observation. They found a huge concentration of mass there, later identified as mainly stars, and also discovered that much of the gas in the region was moving rapidly outward away from the center."<ref name= OX2 /> In June 1945, after the end of the war, Oort returned to Leiden, took over as director of the Observatory, and became Full Professor of Astronomy.<ref name= NYT /> During this immediate postwar period, he led the Dutch group that built radio telescopes at [[Radio Kootwijk]], Dwingeloo, and Westerbork and used the 21-centimeter line to map the Milky Way, including the large-scale spiral structure, the [[Galactic Center]], and gas cloud motions. Oort was helped in this project by the Dutch telecommunications company, PTT, which, he later explained, "had under their care all the radar equipment that was left behind by the Germans on the coast of Holland. This radar equipment consisted in part of reflecting telescopes of 7 1/2 meter aperture.... Our radio astronomy was really started with the aid of one of these instruments… it was in Kootwijk that the first map of the Galaxy was made."<ref name= OHT /> For a brief period, before the completion of the Jodrell Bank telescope, the Dwingeloo instrument was the largest of its kind on Earth.

It has been written that "Oort was probably the first astronomer to realize the importance" of radio astronomy.<ref name= NYT /> "In the days before radio telescopes," one source notes, "Oort was one of the few scientists to realise the potential significance of using radio waves to search the heavens. His theoretical research suggested that vast clouds of hydrogen lingered in the spiral arms of the Galaxy. These molecular clouds, he predicted, were the birthplaces of stars."<ref name= ESA /> These predictions were confirmed by measurements made at the new radio observatories at [[Dwingeloo Radio Observatory|Dwingeloo]] and [[Westerbork Synthesis Radio Telescope|Westerbork]]. Oort later said that "it was [[Grote Reber]]'s work which first impressed me and convinced me of the unique importance of radio observations for surveying the galaxy."<ref name= OHT /> Just before the war, Reber had published a study of galactic radio emissions. Oort later commented, "The work of Grote Reber made it quite clear [radio astronomy] would be a very important tool for investigating the Galaxy, just because it could investigate the whole disc of the galactic system unimpeded by absorption."<ref name= OHT /> Oort's work in radio astronomy is credited by colleagues with putting the Netherlands in the forefront of postwar astronomy.<ref name= NYT /> Oort also investigated the source of the light from the Crab Nebula, finding that it was [[Polarization (waves)|polarized]], and probably produced by [[synchrotron radiation]], confirming a hypothesis by [[Iosif Shklovsky]].<ref name= oort-crab>{{cite book |title=A short biography of Jan Hendrik Oort: 7. Crab Nebula |publisher=Leiden University Library |first1=J. |last1=Katgert-Merkelijn |first2=J. |last2=Damen |chapter=Jan Oort, astronomer : Catalogue of an exhibition in Leiden University library, April 20 - May 27, 2000 |date=2000 |df=dmy-all |hdl = 1887/77628}}</ref>

=== Comet studies ===
Oort went on to study comets, which he formulated a number of revolutionary hypotheses. He hypothesized that the Solar System is surrounded by a massive cloud consisting of billions of comets, many of them "long-period" comets that originate in a cloud far beyond the orbits of [[Neptune]] and [[Pluto]]. This cloud is now known as the Oort Cloud. He also realized that these external comets, from beyond Pluto, can "become trapped into tighter orbits by [[Jupiter]], and become periodic comets, like [[Halley's Comet|Halley's comet]]." According to one source, "Oort was one of the few people to have seen Comet Halley on two separate apparitions. At the age of 10, he was with his father on the shore at Noordwijk, Netherlands, when he first saw the comet. In 1986, 76 years later, he went up in a plane and was able to see the famous comet once more."<ref name= OX2 />

In 1951 Oort and his wife spent several months in [[Princeton University|Princeton]] and [[Pasadena College|Pasadena]], an interlude that led to a paper by Oort and [[Lyman Spitzer]] on the acceleration of interstellar clouds by [[O-type stars]]. He went on to study high-velocity clouds. Oort served as director of the Leiden Observatory until 1970. After his retirement, he wrote comprehensive articles on the galactic center and on superclusters and published several papers on the quasar absorption lines, supporting Yakov Zel'dovich's pancake model of the universe. He also continued researching the Milky Way and other galaxies and their distribution until shortly before his death at 92.<ref name= NYT />

One of Oort's strengths, according to one source, was his ability to "translate abstruse mathematical papers into physical terms," as exemplified by his translation of the difficult mathematical terms of Lindblad's theory of differential galactic rotation into a physical model. Similarly, he "derived the existence of the comet cloud on the outskirts of the Solar System from the observations, using the mathematics needed in dynamics, but then deduced the origin of this cloud using general physical arguments and a minimum of mathematics."<ref name= NYT /><ref name= OX2 />

==Personal life==

In 1927, Oort married Johanna Maria (Mieke) Graadt van Roggen (1906–1993). They had met at a university celebration at Utrecht, where Oort's brother was studying biology at the time. Oort and his wife had two sons, Coenraad (Coen) and [[Abraham H. Oort|Abraham]], and a daughter, Marijke. Abraham became a professor of climatology at [[Princeton University]].

According to the website of Leiden University, Oort was very interested in and knowledgeable about art. "[W]hen visiting another country he would always try to take some time off to visit the local museums and exhibitions…and in the fifties served for some years as chairman of the pictorial arts committee of the Leiden Academical Arts Centre, which had among other things the task of organizing expositions".<ref name=UNI>{{cite web|title=Jan Oort, Astronomer|url=http://bc.ub.leidenuniv.nl/bc/tentoonstelling/Jan_Oort/object1.htm#1|access-date=2 June 2014|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140822222450/http://bc.ub.leidenuniv.nl/bc/tentoonstelling/Jan_Oort/object1.htm#1|archive-date=22 August 2014}}</ref>

"Colleagues remembered him as a tall, lean and courtly man with a genial manner," reported his ''New York Times'' obituary.<ref name= NYT />

==Honours==
[[File:Oort-birthplace-Franeker.jpg|thumb|right|Commemorative plate at the house where Jan Oort was born in [[Franeker]] (Zilverstraat 18)]]
'''Awards'''
* [[Bruce Medal]] of the [[Astronomical Society of the Pacific]] in 1942
* [[Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society]] in 1946
* [[Janssen Medal (French Academy of Sciences)|Janssen Medal]] from the [[French Academy of Sciences]] in 1946
* [[Prix Jules Janssen]], the highest award of the [[Société astronomique de France]], the French astronomical society (1947)
* [[Henry Norris Russell Lectureship]] of the [[American Astronomical Society]] in 1951
* [[Gouden Ganzenveer]] in 1960
* [[Vetlesen Prize]] in 1966
* National Radio Astronomy Observatory, Jansky Prize, 1967
* [[Karl Schwarzschild Medal]] of the [[Astronomische Gesellschaft]] in 1972
* Association pour le Développement International de l'Observatoire de Nice, ADION medal, 1978
* [[Balzan Prize]] for [[Astrophysics]] in 1984
* [[Inamori Foundation]], [[Kyoto Prize]], 1987

'''Named after him'''
* [[1691 Oort]] (asteroid)
* [[Oort cloud]] ([[Öpik–Oort cloud]])
* [[Oort limit]]
* [[Oort constants]]
* [https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/locaties/oort#tab-3 Oort building], the current building of the [[Leiden Observatory]]

'''Memberships'''
* Member of the [[Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences]] (1937–1943, 1945–)<ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.dwc.knaw.nl/biografie/pmknaw/?pagetype=authorDetail&aId=PE00002152 |title=Jan Hendrik Oort (1900–1992) |publisher=[[Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences]] |access-date=30 July 2015}}</ref>
* Member of the [[American Academy of Arts and Sciences]] (1946–)<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jan Hendrik Oort |url=https://www.amacad.org/person/jan-hendrik-oort |access-date=2022-12-19 |website=American Academy of Arts & Sciences |language=en}}</ref>
* Members of the United States [[National Academy of Sciences]] (1953–)<ref>{{Cite web |title=Jan H. Oort |url=http://www.nasonline.org/member-directory/deceased-members/45952.html |access-date=2022-12-19 |website=www.nasonline.org}}</ref>
* Member of the [[American Philosophical Society]] (1957–)<ref>{{Cite web |title=APS Member History |url=https://search.amphilsoc.org/memhist/search?creator=Jan+Oort&title=&subject=&subdiv=&mem=&year=&year-max=&dead=&keyword=&smode=advanced |access-date=2022-12-19 |website=search.amphilsoc.org}}</ref>

Upon his death, Nobel Prize winning astrophysicist [[Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar]] remarked, "The great oak of Astronomy has been felled, and we are lost without its shadow."<ref>{{Citation
| volume = 35
| issue = 2
| pages = 237–42
| last = van de Hulst
| first = H. C.
| title = Jan Hendrik Oort (1900–1992)
| journal = Quarterly Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society
| year = 1994
| bibcode = 1994QJRAS..35..237V
| postscript = .
}}</ref>

==References==

===Notes===
{{reflist|2}}

===Biographical materials===
* Blaauw, Adriaan, ''Biographical Encyclopedia of Astronomers'' (Springer, NY, 2007), pp.&nbsp;853–55.
* Chapman, David M.F., "Reflections: Jan Hendrik Oort – Swirling Galaxies and Clouds of Comets," JRASC 94, 53–54 (2000).
* ESA Space Science, "Comet Pioneer: Jan Hendrik Oort," 27 February 2004.
* Katgert-Merkelijn, J., University of Leiden, [http://hdl.handle.net/1887/77628 "Jan Oort, Astronomer"].
* Katgert-Merkelijn, J.K.: ''The letters and papers of Jan Hendrik Oort, as archived in the University Library, Leiden''. Dordrecht, Kluwer Academic Publishers, 1997. {{ISBN|0-7923-4542-8}}.
* Oort, J.H., "Some Notes on My Life as an Astronomer," Annual Review of Astronomy & Astrophysics 19, 1 (1981).
* van de Hulst, H.C., ''Biographical Memoirs of the Royal Society of London'' 40, 320–26 (1994).
* van der Kruit, Pieter C.: ''Jan Hendrik Oort. Master of the Galactic System''. Springer Nature, 2019. {{ISBN|978-3-030-17800-0}}.
* van Woerden, Hugo, Willem N. Brouw, and Henk C. van de Hulst, eds., "Oort and the Universe: A Sketch of Oort's Research and Person" (D. Reidel, Dordrecht, 1980).

===Obituaries===
* Blaauw, Adriaan, Zenit jaarg, 196–210 (1993).
* Blaauw, Adriaan & Maarten Schmidt, PASP 105, 681 (1993).
* Blaauw, Adriaan, "Oort im Memoriam," in Leo Blitz & Peter Teuben, eds., 169th IAU Symposium: Unsolved Problems of the
* Milky Way, (Kluwer Acad. Publishers, 1996), pp. xv–xvi.
* Pecker, J.-C., "La Vie et l'Oeuvre de Jan Hendrik Oort," Comptes Rendus de l'Acadèmie des Sciences: La Vie des Science 10, 5, 535–40 (1993).
* van de Hulst, H.C., QJRAS 35, 237–42 (1994).
* van den Bergh, Sidney, "An Astronomical Life: J.H. Oort (1900–1992)," JRASC 87, 73–76 (1993).
* Woltjer, L., J. Astrophys. Astron. 14, 3–5 (1993).
* Woltjer, Lodewijk, Physics Today 46, 11, 104–05 (1993).

===Literature===
{{Library resources box|by=yes|lccn=n80107139}}
* {{cite journal | last = Oort | first = Jan H. | title = The structure of the cloud of comets surrounding the Solar System and a hypothesis concerning its origin | journal = Bulletin of the Astronomical Institutes of the Netherlands | volume = 11 | pages = 91–110 | year = 1950 | url = https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1950BAN....11...91O }}
* {{Cite journal | last1 = Oort | first1 = J. H. | title = Galaxies and the Universe: Properties of the universe are revealed by the rotation of galaxies and their distribution in space | doi = 10.1126/science.170.3965.1363 | journal = Science | volume = 170 | issue = 3965 | pages = 1363–70 | year = 1970 | pmid =  17817459|bibcode = 1970Sci...170.1363O | s2cid = 121389956 }}
* {{Cite journal | last1 = Rougoor | first1 = G. W. | last2 = Oort | first2 = J. H. | doi = 10.1073/pnas.46.1.1 | title = Distribution and Motion of Interstellar Hydrogen in the Galactic System with Particular Reference to the Region within 3 Kiloparsecs of the Center | journal = Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | volume = 46 | issue = 1 | pages = 1–13 | year = 1960 | pmid =  16590580| pmc = 284997|bibcode = 1960PNAS...46....1R | url = https://openaccess.leidenuniv.nl/bitstream/handle/1887/8524/008_653_022.pdf?sequence=1 | doi-access = free }}
* {{Cite journal | last1 = Oort | first1 = J. H. | title = Note on the Difference in Velocity between Absolutely Bright and Faint Stars | doi = 10.1073/pnas.10.6.253 | journal = Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | volume = 10 | issue = 6 | pages = 253–56 | year = 1924 | pmid =  16586937| pmc =1085634 |bibcode = 1924PNAS...10..253O | doi-access = free }}

==External links==
{{Commons category}}
{{Wikiquote}}
* [https://www.aip.org/history-programs/niels-bohr-library/oral-histories/4806 Oral history interview transcript with Jan Oort on 10 November 1977], American Institute of Physics, Niels Bohr Library & Archives
* {{MathGenealogy|id=112244|title=Jan Hendrik Oort}}
* [http://hdl.handle.net/1887/77628 Jan Oort, astronomer (Leiden University Library, April–May 2000)]—Online exhibition

{{Radio-astronomy}}
{{Authority control}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:Oort, Jan}}
[[Category:Jan Oort| ]]
[[Category:1900 births]]
[[Category:1992 deaths]]
[[Category:Academic staff of Leiden University]]
[[Category:Foreign associates of the National Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Foreign members of the Royal Society]]
[[Category:Foreign members of the Russian Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Foreign members of the USSR Academy of Sciences]]
[[Category:Kyoto laureates in Basic Sciences]]
[[Category:Members of the American Philosophical Society]]
[[Category:Members of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences]]
[[Category:People from Franekeradeel]]
[[Category:Presidents of the International Astronomical Union]]
[[Category:Recipients of the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society]]
[[Category:University of Groningen alumni]]
[[Category:Vetlesen Prize winners]]