Thijs de Graauw, a Dutch astronomer, died on April 20, 2026, at the age of 84.
Born Mattheus Wilhelmus Maria de Graauw in Kerkdriel on March 10, 1942, he studied astronomy at Utrecht University and received his Ph.D. there in 1975 under Henk van Bueren for a dissertation on infrared heterodyne detection in astronomy.
From 1975 to 1983, he worked as a scientist in the Space Science Department of the European Space Agency. At ESTEC in Noordwijk, he worked on the development of microwave receiver technology. In 2012, he received the Joseph Weber Award for his work on the short wavelength spectrometer on the Infrared Space Observatory and on the HIFI camera aboard Herschel.
Thijs de Graauw, 84, Dutch astronomer.