1875-1969
Astronomer

Flagstaff.

Vesto M. Slipher was born into a farming family on 11 November 1875 in Mulberry, Indiana. After high school Slipher taught in a small country school. At twenty-one he enrolled at Indiana University, graduating in 1901 with a B.A. in celestial mechanics and astronomy. During the summer after graduation Slipher began work as an assistant to the renowned astronomer Percival Lowell in Flagstaff, Arizona. Slipher's position soon became permanent, and he continued working in Flagstaff for the rest of his career.

Planet Investigations.

From 1901 to 1915 Slipher was Lowell's assistant. In 1902 Slipher installed a spectrograph at Lowell's observatory, and, under Lowell's guidance, used the device to search for evidence of water and oxygen on Mars and to measure the length of a day on Venus. From 1905 to 1907 he unsuccessfully searched for life on Mars, looking especially for the existence of chlorophyll. In 1909 Indiana University granted...