Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline, James Keeler, said, Astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the heavenly bodies, rather than their positions or motions in space–what they are, rather than where they are." Among the subjects studied are the Sun, other stars, galaxies, extrasolar planets, the interstellar medium and the cosmic microwave background. Emissions from these objects are examined across all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, and the properties examined include luminosity, density, temperature, and chemical composition. Because astrophysics is a very broad subject, astrophysicists apply concepts and methods from many disciplines of physics, including classical mechanics, electromagnetism, statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, relativity, nuclear and particle physics, and atomic and molecular physics.
David Norman Schramm was an American astrophysicist and educator, and one of the world's foremost experts on the Big Bang theory. Schramm was a pioneer in establishing particle astrophysics as a vibrant research field. He was particularly well known for the study of Big Bang nucleosynthesis and its use as a probe of dark matter and of neutrinos. He also made important contributions to the study of cosmic rays, supernova explosions, heavy-element nucleosynthesis, and nuclear astrophysics generally.
Raymond Davis Jr. was an American chemist and physicist. He is best known as the leader of the Homestake experiment in the 1960s-1980s, which was the first experiment to detect neutrinos emitted from the Sun; for this he shared the 2002 Nobel Prize in Physics.
Eric Ronald Priest is Emeritus Professor at St Andrews University, where he previously held the Gregory Chair of Mathematics and a Bishop Wardlaw Professorship.
Dame Carole Jordan,, is a British physicist, astrophysicist, astronomer and academic. Currently, she is Professor Emeritus of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford and Emeritus Fellow at Somerville College, Oxford. From 1994 to 1996, she was President of the Royal Astronomical Society; she was the first woman to hold this appointment. She won the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society in 2005; she was only the third female recipient following Caroline Herschel in 1828 and Vera Rubin in 1996. She was head of the Rudolf Peierls Centre for Theoretical Physics at the University of Oxford from 2003 to 2004 and 2005 to 2008, and was one of the first female professors in Astronomy in Britain. She was made a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 2006 for services to physics and astronomy.
The European Physical Society (EPS) is a non-profit organisation whose purpose is to promote physics and physicists in Europe through methods such as physics outreach. Formally established in 1968, its membership includes the national physical societies of 42 countries, and some 3200 individual members. The Deutsche Physikalische Gesellschaft, the world's largest and oldest organisation of physicists, is a major member.
Alberto Conti, is an astrophysicist and the Vice President and General Manager of the Civil Space Strategic Business Unit (SBU) at Ball Aerospace. He is one of the creators of the GoogleSky concept, of the idea of astronomical outreach at South by SouthWest 2013 and of the James Webb Space Telescope iBook. He is also the Executive Producer of the Emmy Winning CNN Films The Hunt for Planet B.
The Carrington Event was the most intense geomagnetic storm in recorded history, peaking from 1–2 September 1859 during solar cycle 10. It created strong auroral displays that were reported globally and caused sparking and even fires in multiple telegraph stations. The geomagnetic storm was most likely the result of a coronal mass ejection (CME) from the Sun colliding with Earth's magnetosphere.
ICRANet, the International Center for Relativistic Astrophysics Network, is an international organization which promotes research activities in relativistic astrophysics and related areas. Its members are four countries and three Universities and Research Centers: Armenia, the Federative Republic of Brazil, Italian Republic, the Vatican City State, the University of Arizona (USA), Stanford University (USA) and ICRA.
The Leibniz Institute for Solar Physics (aka: KIS; German: Leibniz-Institut für Sonnenphysik), formerly known as Kiepenheuer Institute for Solar Physics (KIS) is a research institute located in Freiburg, Germany. As a member of the Leibniz Association, the institute conducts basic research in astronomy and astrophysics with a particular focus on solar physics. The institute's structure and operation is based on three strategic pillars: 1) fundamental research, 2) operation of the German solar telescope infrastructure on Tenerife, and 3) applied research in data science and operation of the Science Data Center. Institute's Professors appointed and habilitated at the University of Freiburg offer lectures at various university degree levels and train young scientists.
Louise Harra is a Northern Irish physicist, born in Lurgan, County Armagh, Northern Ireland. She is the Director of the World Radiation Centre of the Physical Meteorological Observatory in Davos (PMOD/WRC) and affiliated professor at the Institute of Particle Physics and Astrophysics of ETH Zurich.
Jiong Qiu (邱炯) is a Chinese-born American astrophysicist who won the Karen Harvey Prize for her work in solar flares.
Hiranya Vajramani Peiris is a British astrophysicist at the University of Cambridge, where she holds the Professorship of Astrophysics (1909). She is best known for her work on the cosmic microwave background radiation, and interdisciplinary links between cosmology and high-energy physics. She was one of 27 scientists who received the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics in 2018 for their "detailed maps of the early universe."
The Community of European Solar Radio Astronomers (CESRA) is a non-profit informal organization of European scientists whose aims are to promote studies of solar radio physics and related topics.
Space climate is the long-term variation in solar activity within the heliosphere, including the solar wind, the Interplanetary magnetic field (IMF), and their effects in the near-Earth environment, including the magnetosphere of Earth and the ionosphere, the upper and lower atmosphere, climate, and other related systems. The scientific study of space climate is an interdisciplinary field of space physics, solar physics, heliophysics, and geophysics. It is thus conceptually related to terrestrial climatology, and its effects on the atmosphere of Earth are considered in climate science.
Philippa K. Browning is a Professor of Astrophysics in the Jodrell Bank Centre for Astrophysics at the University of Manchester. She specialises in the mathematical modelling of fusion plasmas.
Hanumant Shankar Sawant is a radio astronomer and one of the pioneers of the Brazilian solar radio astronomy. He has been the key scientist behind concept, design and installation of the Brazilian Decimetric Array (BDA). Under his leadership, an outstanding group in radio astrophysics has been built at National Institute of Space Research (INPE) in Brazil.
Sergei Vladimirovich Bulanov, is a Russian physicist. He received the 1983 State Prize of the USSR, the 2016 Hannes Alfvén Prize for "contributions to the development of large-scale next-step devices in high-temperature plasma physics research", and the Order of Rising Sun with Gold Rays and Rosette in 2020.
Lorenzo Iorio, born in Bari in, is an Italian physicist working in general relativity, gravitation and related topics in astronomy and astrophysics.
Michael C. F. Wiescher is a German-American experimental nuclear physicist and astrophysicist, known for his laboratory research in nuclear physics connected with various astrophysical phenomena such as stellar evolution and explosion environments.
