Ness was born 15 April 1933 in
Springfield, Massachusetts and grew up in
Meriden, Connecticut. He received a BSc (1955) and a PhD (1959) in
geophysics at
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He joined NASA Goddard center in 1960, and soon became the
principal investigator of the magnetometer experiments on the
Interplanetary Monitoring Platform satellites. He directed the
Explorer 35 Moon mission, and became involved into planetary science. From 1966 to 1986 he was director of the Laboratory of Extraterrestrial Physics at the NASA's
Goddard Space Flight Center. In 1987, he became director of the
Bartol Research Institute at the
University of Delaware. He retired in 2005. Ness died in
Venice, Florida, on December 4, 2023, at the age of 90. == Personal life ==