Born Feb. 26, 1842, in France, Camille Flammarion started early on what would be a long literary and scientific career: At only 16 years old, he wrote a 500-page tome entitled Cosmologie Universelle. The same year, Flammarion obtained a position as an assistant at the Paris Observatory and after a five-year break in his career to work for the Bureau of Longitudes (1862-1867), returned to the observatory. There he was part of a double-star observing program. He also frequently observed the Moon and Mars, and was a proponent of the idea of a canal system on the Red Planet.
Flammarion acquired Charles Messier’s personal copy of the Messier catalog in 1877, added M104 (the Sombrero Galaxy) and identified M102, and published a revised version. He was also a prolific writer of his own texts: The author of more than 50 titles of popular science and science fiction, he was a pioneer in bringing scientific concepts to the public. After Flammarion’s death in 1925 at the age of 83, a Mars crater, a lunar crater, and an asteroid were named after him.
