photo and digital painting by Kate McKinnon, 2012
William K. Hartmann, first winner of the Carl Sagan Medal, is the author of the novel Mars Underground and many highly regarded popular and academic scientific works; his photo-essay book, Desert Heart, is a hauntingly beautiful testament to the Southwest he loves. A planetary scientist, he lives in Tucson, Arizona.
He was the first to convince the scientific mainstream that the Earth had once been hit by a planet sized body (Theia), creating both the moon and the Earth's 23.5° tilt.
Born in Pennsylvania in 1939, he received his B.S. in physics from Pennsylvania State University, and an M.S. in geology and PhD in astronomy from the University of Arizona. His career spans over 40 years, from work in the early 1960s with Gerard Kuiper on Mare Orientale, and work on the Mariner 9 Mars mapping project, to current work on the Mars Global Surveyor imaging team. He is currently a senior scientist at the Planetary Science Institute.
Asteroid 3341 Hartmann is named after him.
