Anniversary of Victor Tejfel

You fell in love with astronomy in your youth and carried this wonderful feeling throughout your life, devoting more than 70 years of creative activity to it. You can be considered a worthy student of such world-famous academicians and astrophysicists as Gavriil Andrianovich Tikhov and Vasily Grigorievich Fesenkov. You successfully defended your PhD thesis on “Spectrophotometry of the lunar surface” and then your doctoral dissertation “Optical properties of the atmospheres of Jupiter and Saturn” at the Academic Council of the Pulkovo Observatory. You were the initiator of the creation of a planetary group at the Astrophysical Institute. From 1970 to the present, you have led the Laboratory of Physics of the Moon and Planets, officially created by the decision of the Academic Council of the Institute and the Presidium of the Academy of Sciences of the Kazakh SSR and on the recommendation of the Commission on Planetary Physics of the Astronomical Council of the USSR Academy of Sciences. Under your leadership, eight candidate dissertations on the study of the physics of the atmospheres of giant planets were successfully defended. On October 21, 1988, you were deservedly awarded the academic title of professor in “Astrophysics”.

You have come a long and creatively rich path:

• From 1968 to 1988, together with the laboratory staff, they took part in several USSR conferences on planetary research held in Ukraine, Georgia, and Abkhazia. And also in the plenums of the Astronomical Council of the USSR Academy of Sciences (Tajikistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, and in the plenums of the Central Council of VAGO (Moscow, Riga, Novosibirsk, Alma-Ata).

• From 1968 to 1990, they supervised contractual work on space topics, carried out by employees of the planetary laboratory on orders from the LavochkinaScient Scientific Production Association, TsNIIMASH, Space Research Institute.

• 1970-1991 – Chairman of the Working Group “Giant Planets” of the Astronomical Council of the USSR Academy of Sciences.

• From 1994 to 2009, head of the astrogeophysical unit for observations of noctilucent clouds from space and Earth, and the laboratory staff took part in the Kazakh space program as observation and detection of the formation of noctilucent clouds over the territory of Kazakhstan, patrolling from Almaty during the periods of the planetary laboratory expedition to Northern Kazakhstan.

• From 1976 to 1982, vice-president, in 1982-1985 – president of the Commission on Planetary Physics of the International Astronomical Union.

• Since 1974, member of the Division of Planetary Sciences of the American Astronomical Society.

• 1974-2015 – member of the Working Group of the International Astronomical Union on the nomenclature of the Solar System’s outer planets.

• 1976-1982 – Vice President, 1982-1985 – President of the Commission for the Physics of Planets and Satellites of the International Astronomical Union.

• 2021 – unofficially, on a volunteer basis, a series of 16 lectures on the physics of the solar system was given to a group of students from KazNU.

• About 350 scientific publications, including 11 books and monographs, have been published. Over the past 25 years, more than 100 scientific and journalistic materials have been published as articles, interviews, and public speeches.

Your multifaceted work has been appreciated by government awards:

• Medal “For Labor Distinction”;
• Medal “Veteran of Labor”;
• Medals for the 60th, 65th and 70th anniversary of the Victory;
• Medal of the Ministry of Digital Development, Innovation and Aerospace Industry of the Republic of Kazakhstan for space exploration.

Looking back, you can safely be proud of your long and creatively rich life, your students, and the friendly and creative team you created, which has been working side by side with you for more than 50 years, making a tangible contribution to the science that you chose and loved with teenage years.

Once again, we congratulate you on your anniversary and wish that harmony, peace, tranquility, and prosperity reign in your soul and life. And, of course, good health, home comfort, sincere smiles, more joy, and pleasant interlocutors.

Director of the Fesenkov Astrophysical Institute
Ph.D. Ch.T. Omarov.