Italian Astrophysicists

Paolo Maffei (1926-2009)

Italian astrophysicist and astronomer. He was one of the pioneers of infrared astronomy research. He discovered two galaxies through infrared analysis. The two galaxies were named after him: Maffei-1 and Maffei-2.

Riccardo Giacconi (1931-2018)

Italian Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist who laid down the foundations of X-ray astronomy. The Asteroid 3371 Giacconi is named in his honour.

Franco Pacini (1939-2012)

Italian astrophysicist and professor. He was the first to suggest that strongly magnetized neutron stars could release their rotational energy and produce a large flow of relativistic particles. The discovery of pulsars proved the correctness of his hypothesis. Asteroid 25601 Francopacini is named after him.

Angioletta Coradini (1946-2011)

Italian astrophysicist, planetary scientist and one of the most important figures in the space sciences in Italy.

Patrizia Caraveo (b. 1954)

Italian astrophysicist. She was among the first to understand the fundamental role of neutron stars in particle physics. She took part in the development of multi-wavelength observations that led to the discovery and understanding of the neutron star Geminga. She also developed a multi-wavelength strategy for the identification of galactic gamma-ray sources, and contributed to the first direct measurement of the magnetic field of an isolated neutron star.

Luciano Rezzolla (b. 1967)

Italian astrophysicist. Together with collaborators he demonstrated that r-modes in a neutron star will generate differential rotation, which could amplify the magnetic field and suppress the instability. He and his collaborators also showed that the merger of magnetised neutron stars leads to the formation of a black hole and highly magnetised torus from which a magnetic jet structure develops which provides a link between the theoretical modelling and observation of a jet in short gamma-ray bursts.

Gianluca Masi (b. 1972)

Italian astrophysicist and astronomer. He is credited with the discovery of 26 minor planets. He also started the Virtual Telescope project, enabling more than 1 million individuals each year to observe the sky in real-time over the Internet. The Nysian asteroid 21795 Masi is named in his honour.

Marica Branchesi (b. 1977)

Italian astrophysicist. Her leadership and scientific work was pivotal for Virgo/LIGO's discovery of gravitational waves.