Giovanni Bignami
Giovanni "Nanni" Fabrizio Bignami (born April 10, 1944 in Desio ; † May 24, 2017 in Madrid ) was an Italian astrophysicist .
Bignami studied physics at the University of Milan with the Laurea degree in 1968 with Giuseppe Occhialini . Then he turned to space exploration with satellites. He was a senior scientist (Principal Investigator) at the X-ray satellite XMM-Newton of the ESA . He was also professor of astronomy and astrophysics at the Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori (IUSS).
From 2004 to 2007 he was President of the Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC) of ESA and from 2007 to 2008 board member of the Italian space agency. From 2011 to 2015 he was the first Italian President of the Committee on Space Research (COSPAR). and from 2011 to 2015 President of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics (INAF, Istituto Nazionale di Astrofisica). He was also spokesman for the Square Kilometer Array , a major contributor to the Cherenkov Telescope Array , and he was director of the Center d'Etude Spatiale des Rayonnement in Toulouse .
He dealt mainly with X-ray and gamma-ray astronomy. He was involved in the missions COS-B , SAS-2 , XMM-Newton, Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope , INTEGRAL and AGILE . He also wrote popular science books.
In 1993 he received the Bruno Rossi Prize with Jules Halpern . He received the Blaise Pascal Medal , the Von Karman Award of the International Academy of Astronautics, was an officer in the Legion of Honor and the Ordre national du Mérite and a member of the Académie des sciences and the Accademia dei Lincei .
He was married to the astrophysicist Patrizia A. Caravero (* 1954). Like Bignami, she was involved in the identification of the gamma-ray and X-ray source Geminga (a nearby neutron star and pulsar with no observed radio emission).
Fonts
- La storia nello spazio, Milan: Mursia, 2001
- L'esplorazione dello spazio. Alla scoperta del sistema solare, Bologna: Il Mulino, 2006
- We are the Martians, Springer 2012
- Imminent Science, Springer 2014
- The Mystery of the seven spheres, Springer 2015
- with Andrea Sommariva: The future of human space exploration, Macmillan 2016
Web links
- Obituary at the Cherenkov Telescope Array
- Luca Fraioli: Morto Giovanni Bignami, astrofisico e divulgatore , La Repubblica, March 25, 2017
References and comments
| personal data | |
|---|---|
| SURNAME | Bignami, Giovanni |
| ALTERNATIVE NAMES | Bignami, Giovanni Fabrizio (full name) |
| BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Italian astrophysicist |
| DATE OF BIRTH | April 10, 1944 |
| PLACE OF BIRTH | Desio |
| DATE OF DEATH | May 24, 2017 |
| Place of death | Madrid |