Giovanni Fabrizio Bignami (10 April 1944 – 24 May 2017) was an Italian physicist. From March 2007 until August 2008, he was Chairman of the

Italian Space Agency The Italian Space Agency (; ASI) is a government agency established in 1988 to fund, regulate and coordinate space exploration activities in Italy. The agency cooperates with numerous national and international entities who are active in aerospac ...

. Between 2010 and 2014, he was the first Italian to chair the

Committee on Space Research The Committee on Space Research (COSPAR) was established on October 3, 1958 by the International Council for Scientific Unions (ICSU) and its first chair was Hildegard Korf Kallmann-Bijl. Among COSPAR's objectives are the promotion of scienti ...

(COSPAR), and from 2011 until 2015, he was President of

INAF The National Institute for Astrophysics (, or INAF) is an Italian research institute in astronomy and astrophysics, founded in 1999. INAF funds and operates twenty separate research facilities, which in turn employ scientists, engineers and tech ...

. He was also the chairman of the SKA project. He was married to fellow Italian astrophysicist Patrizia A. Caraveo.

Career

Bignami graduated from the

University of Milan The University of Milan (; ), officially abbreviated as UNIMI, or colloquially referred to as La Statale ("the State niversity), is a public university, public research university in Milan, Italy. It is one of the largest universities in Eu ...

in 1968 with a degree in physics. From 1988 to 1997, he was the Principal Investigator for the

European Space Agency The European Space Agency (ESA) is a 23-member International organization, international organization devoted to space exploration. With its headquarters in Paris and a staff of around 2,547 people globally as of 2023, ESA was founded in 1975 ...

XMM-Newton ''XMM-Newton'', also known as the High Throughput X-ray Spectroscopy Mission and the X-ray Multi-Mirror Mission, is an X-ray space observatory launched by the European Space Agency in December 1999 on an Ariane 5 rocket. It is the second corners ...

mission, and was a professor of

astronomy Astronomy is a natural science that studies celestial objects and the phenomena that occur in the cosmos. It uses mathematics, physics, and chemistry in order to explain their origin and their overall evolution. Objects of interest includ ...

and

astrophysics 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 ...

at the

IUSS Pavia The Scuola Superiore IUSS or the "Istituto Universitario di Studi Superiori" of Pavia (Eng. ''IUSS - School for Advanced Studies'') is a higher learning institute located in Pavia, Italy. The Scuola Superiore IUSS was founded in 1997. It was cr ...

Pavia Pavia ( , ; ; ; ; ) is a town and comune of south-western Lombardy, in Northern Italy, south of Milan on the lower Ticino (river), Ticino near its confluence with the Po (river), Po. It has a population of c. 73,086. The city was a major polit ...

. He is most known for his discovery of the

neutron star A neutron star is the gravitationally collapsed Stellar core, core of a massive supergiant star. It results from the supernova explosion of a stellar evolution#Massive star, massive star—combined with gravitational collapse—that compresses ...

Geminga Geminga is a gamma ray and x-ray pulsar source thought to be a neutron star approximately 250 parsecs (around 800 light-years) from the Sun in the constellation Gemini. Its name, attributed by its discoverer Giovanni Bignami, is bot ...

. From 2004 to 2007, he was President of the Space Science Advisory Committee (SSAC) of the European Space Agency, and from 2007 to 2008, he was Chairman of the Italian Space Agency. Bignami stood as a Democratic Party candidate for Lombardy, Piedmont, Valle d'Aosta and Liguria in the

2009 European Parliament election The 2009 European Parliament election was held in the 27 member states of the European Union (EU) between 4 and 7 June 2009. A total of 736 Member of the European Parliament, Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) were elected to represent s ...

. His campaign slogan was "Più ricerca in Italia, più futuro in Europa" ("More research in Italy and Europe.") He was not elected. In 2010, he was elected President of the

(COSPAR), the first Italian to do so. He held the post until 2014. From 2011 until 2015, Bignami was also President of

. Bignami received several honours, including the

Bruno Rossi Prize The Bruno Rossi Prize is awarded annually by the High Energy Astrophysics division of the American Astronomical Society "for a significant contribution to High Energy Astrophysics, with particular emphasis on recent, original work". Named after as ...

from the

American Astronomical Society The American Astronomical Society (AAS, sometimes spoken as "double-A-S") is an American society of professional astronomers and other interested individuals, headquartered in Washington, DC. The primary objective of the AAS is to promote the adv ...

, the Blaise Pascal Medal for Astrophysics from the European Academy of Sciences and the Von Karman Award from the

International Academy of Astronautics The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) is a Paris-based non-government association for the field of astronautics. It was founded in Stockholm, Sweden) on August 16, 1960, by Dr. Theodore von Kármán. It was recognised by the United Nation ...

. He also was named Officier of the

Légion d’Honneur The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...

and the

Ordre national du Mérite The (; ) is a French order of merit with membership awarded by the President of the French Republic, founded on 3 December 1963 by President Charles de Gaulle. The reason for the order's establishment was twofold: to replace the large number of ...

, and member of the

Accademia dei Lincei The (; literally the "Academy of the Lynx-Eyed"), anglicised as the Lincean Academy, is one of the oldest and most prestigious European scientific institutions, located at the Palazzo Corsini on the Via della Lungara in Rome, Italy. Founded in ...

and of the

French Academy of Sciences The French Academy of Sciences (, ) is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French Scientific method, scientific research. It was at the forefron ...

. Bignami died on 24 May 2017 in

Madrid Madrid ( ; ) is the capital and List of largest cities in Spain, most populous municipality of Spain. It has almost 3.5 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 7 million. It i ...

, Spain.

Works

* (it) ''La storia nello spazio'', Milan, Mursia, 2001, . * (it) ''L'esplorazione dello spazio. Alla scoperta del sistema solare'', Bologna, Il Mulino, 2006, . * (it) I marziani siamo noi. Un filo rosso dal Big Bang alla vita, Bologna, Zanichelli, 2010, . Translated into English as ''We are the Martians'',

Springer Springer or springers may refer to: Publishers * Springer Science+Business Media, aka Springer International Publishing, a worldwide publishing group founded in 1842 in Germany formerly known as Springer-Verlag. ** Springer Nature, a multinationa ...

, Berlin, 2012 * (it) Cosa resta da scoprire, Milano, Mondadori, 2011, . Ristampato nel 2012 nella serie bestseller “Oscar”. Translated into English as ''Imminent Science'', Springer, 2014 * (it) G. Bignami-Cristina Bellon, Il futuro spiegato ai ragazzi, Milano, Mondadori, 2012, . * (it) Il mistero delle sette sfere. Cosa resta da esplorare. Dalla depressione di Afar alle stelle più vicine, Milano, Mondadori, 2013, . Translated into English as ''The Mystery of the Seven Spheres'', Springer, 2015 * A Scenario for Interstellar Exploration and Its Financing, Heidelberg, Springer Verlag, 2013, . * (it) G. Bignami-Andrea Sommariva, ''Oro dagli asteroidi e asparagi da Marte. Realtà e miti dell'esplorazione dello spazio'', Milan, Mondadori University, 2015, . * G. Bignami-Andrea Sommariva, The Future of Human Space Exploration, Macmillan, 2016.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bignami, Giovanni 1944 births 2017 deaths People from Desio Italian astrophysicists Members of the French Academy of Sciences Officers of the Legion of Honour Officers of the Ordre national du Mérite University of Milan alumni