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Oct 2, 2024 · Ask the Chatbot a Question Ask the Chatbot a Question Riccardo Giacconi (born October 6, 1931, Genoa, Italy—died November 9, 2018, San Diego, California, U.S.) was an Italian-born physicist who won the Nobel Prize for Physics in 2002 for his seminal discoveries of cosmic sources of X-rays, which helped lay the foundations for the field of X-ray astronomy.
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Revolutionary discoveries in astronomy stem from new observing technologies. And so it was with orbiting X-ray telescopes. They revealed a Universe dominated by luminous, gravity-fed black holes and plasmas glowing at tens of millions of degrees, inside clusters of galaxies. Now 60 years old, the discipline requires space observatories — outside Earth’s X-ray-blocking atmosphere — and new, specialized optics and detectors. For pioneering these, Riccardo Giacconi won the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Giacconi shaped the tools and culture of modern astronomy, which centres on large facilities that serve the community. He realized the importance of catering to the entire observatory life cycle, across the electromagnetic spectrum — from conception to hardware implementation and operations, including calibrations, software pipelines, data archives and software tools for users. He championed scientific leadership and management, and integrated teams, with members doing both technical work and research. His approach is now integral to all major international observatories. One result is the adoption of data interoperability standards for astronomy, developed by the International Virtual Observatory Alliance since 2002.
Giacconi died on 9 December 2018 in San Diego, California, aged 87. He was born in Genoa, Italy, in 1931. His mother, who taught in a secondary school and wrote mathematics textbooks, spurred him to excel. In 1956, with a doctorate on cosmic-ray detection from the University of Milan, he moved to the United States, as a Fulbright fellow at Indiana University Bloomington and later became a research associate at Princeton University in New Jersey. In 1959, Giacconi joined the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) spin-off company American Science & Engineering (AS&E), then in Cambridge.
Here, with Bruno Rossi of MIT and other AS&E physicists, Giacconi conducted a series of experiments on the detection of X-rays from space. In 1962, with Geiger counters flown on an Aerobee rocket from the US White Sands Missile Range in New Mexico, Giacconi and his collaborators discovered the first celestial X-ray source (Sco X-1). It was later identified as a neutron star that was accreting matter from a low-mass star companion. The team also detected a pervasive celestial X-ray background.
These discoveries spurred Giacconi’s proposal to NASA for a strategic programme of X-ray observatories. The first, NASA’s Small Astronomy Satellite 1, was launched from the Italian San Marco platform off the coast of Kenya, on 12 December 1970 — Kenya’s independence day — and was renamed Uhuru, Swahili for ‘freedom’. Uhuru performed the first X-ray survey of the entire sky. It led to the discovery of accreting neutron-star and black-hole sources in binary stars, X-ray emission from supernova remnants, active galactic nuclei and hot haloes in clusters.
- Giuseppina Fabbiano
- 2019
Dec 12, 2018 · This discovery opened up a new window for the exploration of the universe. Giacconi was ready to use this new portal. In 1963, Giacconi and Gursky, who had moved from Princeton to join Giacconi at AS&E, led an effort to lay out a bold program for the future of X-ray astronomy that included more rocket flights, an X-ray satellite to survey the entire sky, and within a few years, an X-ray telescope.
The Nobel Prize in Physics 2002 was divided, one half jointly to Raymond Davis Jr. and Masatoshi Koshiba "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, in particular for the detection of cosmic neutrinos" and the other half to Riccardo Giacconi "for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources"
In 2002, Riccardo was awarded half of the Nobel Prize in physics for “pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources.” In this remembrance, we focus primarily on the arc of Riccardo’s career as it relates to X-ray astronomy and Chandra. Riccardo was well-versed in the classics, and often
Jan 25, 2019 · Riccardo Giacconi, one of the most charismatic and influential figures of astrophysics in the modern era, died on 9 December 2018. He was 87. Giacconi was a co-recipient of the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics for “pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic x-ray sources.”
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Dec 16, 2018 · Riccardo Giacconi. The Nobel Prize in Physics 2002. Born: 6 October 1931, Genoa, Italy. Died: 16 December 2018, La Jolla, CA, USA. Affiliation at the time of the award: Associated Universities Inc., Washington, D.C., USA. Prize motivation: “for pioneering contributions to astrophysics, which have led to the discovery of cosmic X-ray sources”.
