In Memoriam: Peter Signer

After his dissertation at the University of Bern and a seven-year stay at the University of Minnesota, Peter was appointed professor at ETH Zurich in 1965.

He founded the Laboratory for Noble Gas Mass Spectrometry, which he led until his retirement in 1994 and which is now headed by Henner Busemann in the third generation.

In Minneapolis, Peter Signer contributed much to a better understanding noble gases in meteorites in classical works. In his first years at ETH Zurich, he proposed capturing ions from the solar wind with a metal foil on a space mission, an idea that was ultimately realised by his colleagues at the University of Bern as the famous solar wind experiment during the Apollo lunar missions. Under his leadership, our laboratory received worldwide recognition, first with work on lunar samples and meteorites, later also in the field of surface dating of terrestrial samples with "cosmogenic" Noble gases, as well as – in cooperation with Eawag – in noble gas hydrology.

Peter Signer was an enthusiastic lecturer who reminded generations of Earth Science students about the importance of the other planets for understanding Earth.

Written by Rainer Wieler and Derek Vance