Ivan Yosypovych Yarkovsky (1844 – 1902) and His Kinetic Hypothesis of Universal Gravity

The article shows the activity of the famous nature researcher, mechanical engineer Ivan Yosypovych Yarkovsky.It describes his contribution to developing the theory of gravity and establishing the gravity doctrine.It was found out that despite its special value for astronomy, his work was not properly covered by the scientific literature.The article analyzed the main works of I.Y.Yarkovsky, which enabled the possibility to characterize his views.It was shown that I.Y.Yarkovsky was promoting the knowledge about universal gravity as a component for the development of the gravity theory (kinetic hypothesis), knowledge gained based on personal practical experience.I.Y.Yarkovsky had a successful career as a railway engineer and a manager of the mechanical plants.While having spare time, he was working on his own theory of gravity.According to that theory, ether is accumulating in the body and constantly increasing the weight of the body.Gravity appears only when two adjacent bodies partially share the ether flow.I.Y.Yarkovsky applied his theory to the different astronomical, geological, and meteorological phenomena.He published the books that described his theory using his own finances.Despite the principles of Yarkovsky's theory were wrong, one of his research results -the so-called "Yarkovsky effect" -has found important applications in asteroids' physics.In recent years, interest in the movement of asteroids crossing the Earth's orbit has grown significantly.It turned out that for an accurate prediction of the possibility of a collision, the Yarkovsky effect must be taken into account.It should also be noted that in 2003, the effect predicted by Yarkovsky back in 1900 was confirmed by an experimental group of American scientists led by Stephen Chesley and Stephen Ostro from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory using the Arecibo radio telescope located in Puerto Rico.In fact, the "Yarkovsky effect" made it possible to explain the mysterious feature of the Apollo asteroid, discovered back in 1862.Currently, the "Yarkovsky effect" is better known as the Yarkovsky-O'Keeffe-Radziewski-Paddack effect (abbreviated in English as YORP).