Riccardo Giacconi
Italian-American astrophysicist (1931-2018) · Italy · Scientists · Died at 87
Riccardo Giacconi is read about 61 times a day, in 78 languages.
A typical day, 30 days to 22 October 2026
The middle day of the days counted, so one week of news cannot move it. The line under it is the last 397 days, one point a day.
Something wrong?He opened a window no one knew was there: X-rays from space, invisible to every telescope until he built the instruments that could catch them.
A life in dates
Also in Deutsch
Photos 8
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Awards
In their orbit
About this person
Riccardo Giacconi was born in Italy on October 6, 1931, and crossed the Atlantic to become the architect of an entirely new field. He laid down the foundations of X-ray astronomy - the science of detecting high-energy radiation from distant cosmic objects - and built the tools that made it possible. The work earned him the Nobel Prize in Physics and a professorship at Johns Hopkins University. He died on December 9, 2018, having spent a lifetime teaching the world to see what had always been there, just beyond the edge of light.
In common with Riccardo
Subrahmanyan ChandrasekharBoth received Henry Norris Russell Lectureship
Roger PenroseBoth received Karl Schwarzschild Medal
Steven WeinbergBoth received Marcel Grossmann Award
Hans BetheBoth received Bruce Medal
Mario MolinaBoth received NASA Exceptional Scientific Achievement Medal
Benoit MandelbrotBoth received Wolf Prize in PhysicsFame.am measures public visibility signals. It does not measure human value, talent, morality, or credibility.