Sergei Nikolayevich Vernov (10.07.1910-26.09.1982) was a Soviet physicist and an academician (1968; corresponding member 1953). He was born in Sestroretsk. He graduated from the Leningrad Polytechnic Institute (1931). He worked at the Radium Institute, from 1936 at the Physical Institute of the USSR Academy of Sciences, from 1944 was at the same time professor at Moscow University, and from 1946 also worked at the university's Research Institute of Nuclear Physics (from 1960 as its director).
His work was in the field of cosmic-ray physics and space physics. He developed (1935) the radiosonde method for the experimental study of cosmic rays and discovered (1937) the latitude effect of cosmic rays in the stratosphere. In 1945 he organised extensive stratospheric studies of cosmic rays. He studied the electron-photon, muon and nuclear-active components of cosmic rays in the stratosphere, was the first to measure reliably the east-west asymmetry of the fluxes of primary cosmic radiation in the region of the geomagnetic equator, concluded that the greater part of this radiation is protons, and clarified the mechanism by which the secondary components are produced (USSR State Prize, 1949). In the 1950s a unique installation for studying very-high-energy cosmic rays was built under Vernov's direction, and with it an anomaly of the energy spectrum at an energy of 10¹⁵ eV was detected. With the launch of the first Soviet rockets Vernov made measurements of the intensity of cosmic radiation beyond the atmosphere. After the first artificial Earth satellites were created in the USSR, new possibilities for experiments appeared. Together with his pupils and co-workers Vernov discovered (1958) and studied the outer zone of the Earth's radiation belt (at first it was called the outer radiation belt), for which he was awarded the Lenin Prize in 1960. He explained the existence of such a zone of high radiation intensity by the trapping of particles in a magnetic trap. He also proposed a possible mechanism for the injection of charged particles by the decay of neutrons escaping from the atmosphere. Under his direction an extensive programme for studying the Earth's radiation belts and magnetosphere was carried out with the Elektron and Kosmos satellites. As a result, by 1968 the structure and dynamics of the belts had been clarified and a theory of their origin had been constructed. In the later experiments carried out by Vernov and his group on rockets launched towards the Moon and Venus, important results on the physics of space were obtained. The studies of solar cosmic rays and of cosmic radiation on the Earth — Moon and Earth — Venus routes made it possible to detect a number of new and important regularities and to study in detail the radiation conditions in interplanetary space.
He was one of the founders of space materials science.
He founded a school of physicists.