- Email: [email protected]
AAAF Grand Prize Awarded to Planck and Herschel Teams
Blaise Pascal Medal for 2010 by the European Academy of Sciences. An internationally known astronomer and leader of space science in Europe, Professor Bignami has performed fundamental research on the population of gamma-ray sources in the home galaxy, including neutron stars, and his work was essential to the discovery of the first extragalactic gamma-ray source. In fact, Giovanni Bignami was instrumental in developing worldwide gamma-ray astronomy as a new space-age discipline. His research on the identification and understanding of Geminga as the first of a new class of gamma-ray neutron stars remains a template for current researchers in the field. Exploiting space and ground-based astronomy data, he created a new school in the phenomenology and physics of compact celestial objects, but also devoted important efforts in the development of advanced space missions, and space policy, in Italy as well as in Europe.
foreign relations as it is in aerospace engineering”. This prize is awarded annually “for the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America, with respect to improving the performance, efficiency, and safety of air or space vehicles, the value of which has been thoroughly demonstrated by actual use during the preceding year”. When asked about the importance and relevance of these prizes, Simonetta Di Pippo (ESA Director of Human Spaceflight) said, “It is a great honour for all the ISS partners to be recognized with these two prestigious awards. The ISS is not only one of the greatest successes of the space community world-wide, but also an excellent tangible example of international collaboration.
Aerospace Awards for the ISS
[From ESA News, 19 October 2010]
AAAF Grand Prize Awarded to Planck and Herschel Teams
[From ESA News, 19 October 2010]
T
he teams behind Planck and Herschel missions have been awarded the Grand Prix 2010 by the French Association for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AAAF), to acknowledge their “outstanding space endeavours”. The prize was awarded on 9 June 2010 in Paris, and senior members of the teams behind both of these ground-breaking missions were there to collect the award. Among those receiving the award were the Planck Project Manager, Jan Tauber, and the lead scientists on the two instruments: Reno Mandolesi (LFI) and JeanLoup Puget (HFI). David Southwood (ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration) commented “As with any great engineering project, it was a challenge not only to ESA’s scientific and technical staff, and to the scientific teams across Europe, but also to the teams from industry across Europe – led by Thales Alenia Space – who took on the prime engineering task a decade ago. It has been a great adventure for everyone involved. Now the proof of the quality of the work and the worth of the effort is in the tremendous new science now emerging from the two missions”. Mark McCaughrean (Head of the ESA Research and Scientific Support Department) observed:
T
he International Space Station has won two prizes as the greatest international space project of all time. Aviation Week’s Laureate Award and the Collier Trophy are two of the most prestigious awards in the aerospace realm. With this award, Aviation Week has honoured the International Space Station (ISS) programme managers, Pierre Jean (Canadian Space Agency), Bernardo Patti (ESA), Yoshiyuki Hasegawa (JAXA), Alexey Krasnov (Roscosmos) and Michael Suffredini (NASA). The ISS has also been recognized by the National Aeronautic Association with the Robert J. Collier Trophy “for the design, development, and assembly of the world’s largest spacecraft, an orbiting laboratory that promises new discoveries for mankind and sets new standards for international cooperation in space”. The award is for “completing the project in 2009 with the addition of the last major modules (Europeanbuilt Node-3 and Cupola) and the expansion of the crew to six. The ISS is arguably the signature engineering achievement of the last 60 years. By working together, partner agencies demonstrated that the station is as much an achievement in
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and is an expert observational astronomer, planetary theoretician, and planetary modeller. After receiving a BSc in engineering physics from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, he studied planetary science at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Ca., receiving his PhD in1972. Trained as a radio astronomer, with an initial focus on thermal emission from Mars and Mercury, he observed Saturn from the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), using its radar interferometer in 1973. Subsequently, his interests shifted to Saturn's mysterious rings and, ultimately, to the rings around other planets as well. During his early years at Ames, Dr Cuzzi served as a study scientist for the first engineering studies of a Titan entry probe, and also worked on the first ultranarrowband Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) study using Mark I VLBI technology. He joined the Voyager Imaging team in 1978, led the team’s rings subgroup through the planning of all Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune ring encounter observations. In 1989, he was selected as Interdisciplinary Scientist for Rings on the NASA-ESA Cassini-Huygens mission. His current focus is on the composition of the rings and their evolution with time, as well as the possibly chaotic dynamics of the F ring region. In the early 1990s, Dr Cuzzi studied fluid dynamics and turbulence in the early protoplanetary nebula, using 3D turbulence models on NASA’s largest computers. He served as chief of the Planetary Systems Branch of Ames’ Space Science Division from 1992-1996, and is a Fellow of the AGU.
“These two extraordinary missions are set to revolutionize our view of the far-infrared and millimetre wavelength sky, combining to yield important new results about baby stars and planets still forming today in the Milky Way, and stretching all the way back to the birth of the universe itself, more than 13 billion years ago”. This is just the beginning for Herschel and Planck. Both missions will run for several more years. Even after they retire, the analysis of the data will continue. It will take decades to extract all of the scientific jewels from the accumulated data. The first images of the whole sky as seen by Planck were due for release in late 2010, while the mission has already revealed extraordinary filaments of dust threading through our galaxy.
Kuiper Prize Won by NASA Ames Scientist [From: www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/ releases/2010]
J
eff Cuzzi, a planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Ca., has been named the winner of the 2010 Gerard P. Kuiper Prize, the most prestigious individual award in planetary sciences. The Kuiper Prize is presented by the American Astronomical Society’s Division of Planetary Sciences (DPS). The annual award honours outstanding lifetime contributions to planetary sciences, regardless of nationality or DPS membership. Previous winners include Carl Sagan, Eugene Shoemaker and James van Allen. Cuzzi is being honoured because of his many pioneering contributions to our understanding of the formation and evolution of planetary rings and small planets. Spanning four decades, his work includes early observational and theoretical work on rings, participation in NASA’s Voyager and Cassini missions, and his most recent state-of-the art fluid dynamical modelling efforts that will help solve the mysteries of planet formation. During this period, he has mastered several disciplines, including radiative transfer, nebular dynamics and cosmochemistry, often crossing into other fields of research, such as astrophysics and meteoritics. He works in NASA Ames’ Planetary Systems Branch
Bruno Rossi Prize Honours Studies of Very High Energy Gamma Rays [From www.aas.org/head/rossi/rossi.recip. html]
T
he American Astronomical Society (AAS) has awarded the 2010 Bruno Rossi Prize to Felix Aharonian (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Ireland), Werner Hofmann Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Heidelberg, Germany) and Heinz Voelk (also of the MPIK) for their outstanding contributions to imaging of very high energy (TeV) gamma rays as their work addresses fundamental questions
99
foreign relations as it is in aerospace engineering”. This prize is awarded annually “for the greatest achievement in aeronautics or astronautics in America, with respect to improving the performance, efficiency, and safety of air or space vehicles, the value of which has been thoroughly demonstrated by actual use during the preceding year”. When asked about the importance and relevance of these prizes, Simonetta Di Pippo (ESA Director of Human Spaceflight) said, “It is a great honour for all the ISS partners to be recognized with these two prestigious awards. The ISS is not only one of the greatest successes of the space community world-wide, but also an excellent tangible example of international collaboration.
Aerospace Awards for the ISS
[From ESA News, 19 October 2010]
AAAF Grand Prize Awarded to Planck and Herschel Teams
[From ESA News, 19 October 2010]
T
he teams behind Planck and Herschel missions have been awarded the Grand Prix 2010 by the French Association for Aeronautics and Astronautics (AAAF), to acknowledge their “outstanding space endeavours”. The prize was awarded on 9 June 2010 in Paris, and senior members of the teams behind both of these ground-breaking missions were there to collect the award. Among those receiving the award were the Planck Project Manager, Jan Tauber, and the lead scientists on the two instruments: Reno Mandolesi (LFI) and JeanLoup Puget (HFI). David Southwood (ESA Director of Science and Robotic Exploration) commented “As with any great engineering project, it was a challenge not only to ESA’s scientific and technical staff, and to the scientific teams across Europe, but also to the teams from industry across Europe – led by Thales Alenia Space – who took on the prime engineering task a decade ago. It has been a great adventure for everyone involved. Now the proof of the quality of the work and the worth of the effort is in the tremendous new science now emerging from the two missions”. Mark McCaughrean (Head of the ESA Research and Scientific Support Department) observed:
T
he International Space Station has won two prizes as the greatest international space project of all time. Aviation Week’s Laureate Award and the Collier Trophy are two of the most prestigious awards in the aerospace realm. With this award, Aviation Week has honoured the International Space Station (ISS) programme managers, Pierre Jean (Canadian Space Agency), Bernardo Patti (ESA), Yoshiyuki Hasegawa (JAXA), Alexey Krasnov (Roscosmos) and Michael Suffredini (NASA). The ISS has also been recognized by the National Aeronautic Association with the Robert J. Collier Trophy “for the design, development, and assembly of the world’s largest spacecraft, an orbiting laboratory that promises new discoveries for mankind and sets new standards for international cooperation in space”. The award is for “completing the project in 2009 with the addition of the last major modules (Europeanbuilt Node-3 and Cupola) and the expansion of the crew to six. The ISS is arguably the signature engineering achievement of the last 60 years. By working together, partner agencies demonstrated that the station is as much an achievement in
98
and is an expert observational astronomer, planetary theoretician, and planetary modeller. After receiving a BSc in engineering physics from Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, he studied planetary science at the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, Ca., receiving his PhD in1972. Trained as a radio astronomer, with an initial focus on thermal emission from Mars and Mercury, he observed Saturn from the US National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO), using its radar interferometer in 1973. Subsequently, his interests shifted to Saturn's mysterious rings and, ultimately, to the rings around other planets as well. During his early years at Ames, Dr Cuzzi served as a study scientist for the first engineering studies of a Titan entry probe, and also worked on the first ultranarrowband Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence (SETI) study using Mark I VLBI technology. He joined the Voyager Imaging team in 1978, led the team’s rings subgroup through the planning of all Saturn, Uranus, and Neptune ring encounter observations. In 1989, he was selected as Interdisciplinary Scientist for Rings on the NASA-ESA Cassini-Huygens mission. His current focus is on the composition of the rings and their evolution with time, as well as the possibly chaotic dynamics of the F ring region. In the early 1990s, Dr Cuzzi studied fluid dynamics and turbulence in the early protoplanetary nebula, using 3D turbulence models on NASA’s largest computers. He served as chief of the Planetary Systems Branch of Ames’ Space Science Division from 1992-1996, and is a Fellow of the AGU.
“These two extraordinary missions are set to revolutionize our view of the far-infrared and millimetre wavelength sky, combining to yield important new results about baby stars and planets still forming today in the Milky Way, and stretching all the way back to the birth of the universe itself, more than 13 billion years ago”. This is just the beginning for Herschel and Planck. Both missions will run for several more years. Even after they retire, the analysis of the data will continue. It will take decades to extract all of the scientific jewels from the accumulated data. The first images of the whole sky as seen by Planck were due for release in late 2010, while the mission has already revealed extraordinary filaments of dust threading through our galaxy.
Kuiper Prize Won by NASA Ames Scientist [From: www.nasa.gov/centers/ames/news/ releases/2010]
J
eff Cuzzi, a planetary scientist at NASA Ames Research Center, Moffett Field, Ca., has been named the winner of the 2010 Gerard P. Kuiper Prize, the most prestigious individual award in planetary sciences. The Kuiper Prize is presented by the American Astronomical Society’s Division of Planetary Sciences (DPS). The annual award honours outstanding lifetime contributions to planetary sciences, regardless of nationality or DPS membership. Previous winners include Carl Sagan, Eugene Shoemaker and James van Allen. Cuzzi is being honoured because of his many pioneering contributions to our understanding of the formation and evolution of planetary rings and small planets. Spanning four decades, his work includes early observational and theoretical work on rings, participation in NASA’s Voyager and Cassini missions, and his most recent state-of-the art fluid dynamical modelling efforts that will help solve the mysteries of planet formation. During this period, he has mastered several disciplines, including radiative transfer, nebular dynamics and cosmochemistry, often crossing into other fields of research, such as astrophysics and meteoritics. He works in NASA Ames’ Planetary Systems Branch
Bruno Rossi Prize Honours Studies of Very High Energy Gamma Rays [From www.aas.org/head/rossi/rossi.recip. html]
T
he American Astronomical Society (AAS) has awarded the 2010 Bruno Rossi Prize to Felix Aharonian (Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, Ireland), Werner Hofmann Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics, Heidelberg, Germany) and Heinz Voelk (also of the MPIK) for their outstanding contributions to imaging of very high energy (TeV) gamma rays as their work addresses fundamental questions
99