| Abstract: | The contribution to European astronomy of Milutin Milanković is analyzed. A crater on the far side of the Moon, a crater on Mars, and asteroid 1605 are named after this most distinguished Serbian astronomer. He explained the phenomenon of the ice ages by an astronomical theory. Milanković elucidated also the history of the Earth's climate as well as that of planet Mars, and in addition he was the author of the mathematical theory of climate and of the Earth's polar motion. He did important contributions to celestial mechanics and the history of astronomy, and was a great popularizator of science. At the orthodox church council in 1923 in Istanbul, he submitted a proposal concerning the reform of the calendar, elaborated by him and by Maksim Trpković, providing for a more exact calendar than the Gregorian one. The calendar of Milanković is now used by some orthodox churches, such as the Greek and Romanian ones. |
