John Russell, 88; Professor Founded USC Astronomy Dept.
John A. Russell, 88, founder of the USC Astronomy Department and an expert on phenomena including mysterious green flashes, died Nov. 3 in Thousand Oaks.
A native of Ludington, Mich., Russell studied astronomy at UCLA and earned his doctorate at UC Berkeley. He became the first person to teach astronomy full time at USC and chaired its developing department.
When strange lights and sights appeared over Southern California, news media frequently called Russell for the explanation. Five years ago, when a “green flash” alarmed people from San Francisco to Arizona, Russell set minds at rest by identifying the cause as a meteor. The green color, he said, resulted from the burning of magnesium, a major component of such space rocks.
Russell was a pioneering meteor spectroscopist and active in the Meteoritic Society
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