J. Mayo Greenberg

Jerome Mayo Greenberg (14 January 1922 – 29 November 2001) was an American astrophysicist and experimental astrochemist, best known for his work on the composition and optical properties of interstellar dust and for founding the first laboratory dedicated to simulating interstellar dust and ice grains under realistic space conditions. He is also regarded as the founding father of the laboratory astrophysics.

Early life and education Greenberg was born in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1922. A gifted child, he entered Johns Hopkins University to study physics at the age of fifteen and graduated two years later.

From the early 1970s, Greenberg promoted the then-controversial idea that icy grain mantles play a central role in astrochemistry. In the Leiden laboratory he and his group synthesized complex organic molecules from simple ices under simulated interstellar conditions, producing a refractory organic residue whose colour and spectral properties resembled the surface of Halley's Comet as measured by spacecraft. He published more than 300 papers, 146 of them after moving to Leiden.

Death and legacy Greenberg died of pancreatic cancer at his home in Leiden on 29 November 2001. In 1998 the philanthropists Raymond and Beverly Sackler endowed the Raymond and Beverly Sackler Laboratory for Astrophysics at Leiden, securing the laboratory; after his death the J. Mayo Greenberg Scholarship Prize was established for students from developing countries.