Donald Lynden-Bell
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Donald Lynden-Bell (born Dover, England April 5 1935 – ) is a British astronomer, best known for his theories that galaxies contain massive black holes at their centre, and that such black holes are the principal source of energy in quasars. He currently works at the Institute of Astronomy in Cambridge.
Educated at the University of Cambridge, in 1962 he published research with Olin Eggen and Allan Sandage arguing that our galaxy originated through the dynamic collapse of a single large gas cloud. In 1969 he published his theory that quasars are powered by massive black holes, later extending it to state that most galaxies have a black hole at their centre.
He was also the first to postulate (as part of a group of astronomers known as the Seven Samurai) the existence of the Great Attractor, a huge, diffuse region of material around 250 million light-years away that results in the observed motion of our local galaxies.
He won the Eddington Medal in 1984, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 1993, the Bruce Medal in 1998, and the Henry Norris Russell Lectureship in 2000.Template:Astronomer-stub