Alexander Getling has communicated the following:
Sad news has come from the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory of the Russian Academy of Sciences: On 8 September 2025, at the age of 82, one of its oldest employees, Valery Aleksandrovich Kotov, who worked in the field of observational heliophysics, passed away suddenly. He was a world-renowned scientist and was rightly held in high esteem among specialists in solar physics.
After graduating with honors from the Astronomy Department of the Physics Faculty of the Lomonosov Moscow State University in 1966, V.A. Kotov entered graduate school at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory, where the outstanding astrophysicist Academician A.B. Severny became his scientific advisor. Valery Aleksandrovich worked at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory until the end of his life. After defending his Candidate-of-Science dissertation on magnetic fields and currents in sunspots in 1973, he soon focused on research into the general magnetic field of the Sun and its global pulsations, which was initiated at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory on the initiative of A.B. Severny. In this way, he became one of the authors of the discovery of 160-minute global oscillations of the Sun. This discovery, registered in 1985, aroused great interest among solar scientists around the world and prompted them to actively study solar pulsations. In an article by A.B. Severny, V.A. Kotov, and T.T. Tsap, published in 1979, the word “helioseismology” appeared for the first time. This term marked a new, truly epoch-making direction in the study of the Sun that was emerging in those years. V.A. Kotov was thus among those who stood at the origins of this new field. Thanks to helioseismology, heliophysicists gained access to a powerful tool that allowed them to study the interior of the Sun. Based on the results of his research into global magnetic fields and oscillations, V.A. Kotov defended his Doctor-of-Science dissertation in 1994.
Valery Aleksandrovich was a friendly and kind person. He had a lively personality, and one cannot help but recall the witty and humorous style of the letters he sent to his friends, congratulating them on significant dates or recounting recent events.
V.A. Kotov was awarded medals by the All-Russian Exhibition Center and the Order of the Badge of Honor (1981). He was a member of the International
Astronomical Union. An asteroid (8246) Kotov, discovered in 1979 by the Crimean astronomer N.S. Chernykh, was named in his honor.
Those who knew Valery Aleksandrovich Kotov will forever cherish fond memories of this remarkable person. |