Brian May
Brian May, CBE (born 19 July 1947) is an English musician, singer, songwriter, astrophysicist, and photographer. He is best known as the lead guitarist of the rock band Queen. He uses a home-built electric guitar called the Red Special. His compositions for the band include “We Will Rock You”, “Tie Your Mother Down”, “I Want It All”, “Fat Bottomed Girls”, […]
Leslie Sage
Dr Leslie Sage is a senior editor (physical sciences) at the science journal Nature and is based at the Astronomy Department of the University of Maryland (USA). He is also a long-time columnist for the Journal of the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada. He grew up in the western suburbs of Toronto, Canada, but now […]
Kip Thorne
Kip Thorne is an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate, known for his contributions in gravitational physics and astrophysics. A longtime friend and colleague of Stephen Hawking and Carl Sagan, he was the Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) until 2009 and is one of the world’s leading experts on the astrophysical implications of Einstein’s general theory of relativity. He continues to do scientific research […]
Adam Burrows
Adam Burrows is currently a Professor of Astrophysical Sciences at Princeton University. He received his undergraduate degree in Physics from Princeton and his Ph.D. in Physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. His primary research interests are supernova theory, exoplanet and brown dwarf theory, planetary atmospheres, computational astrophysics, and nuclear astrophysics. Well-known as a pioneer […]
Charlie Duke
Participated as Orion lunar module pilot on the Apollo 16 mission in 1972 and explored Descartes. The Apollo 16 mission is considered one of the most successful, due to the number of experiments performed on lunar terrain, and the amount of rocky material brought to Earth. Apollo 16 (April 16–27, 1972) was launched from John F. Kennedy […]
Neil Armstrong
Neil Alden Armstrong (August 5, 1930 – August 25, 2012) was an American astronaut, engineer, and the first person to walk on the Moon. He was also an aerospace engineer, naval aviator, test pilot, and university professor. Before becoming an astronaut, Armstrong was an officer in the U.S. Navy and served in the Korean War. […]
Garik Israelian
Dr Israelian, an astrophysicist at the Institute of Astrophysics of the Canary Islands (Spain), is the creative director and spiritual father of the STARMUS Festival. In 1999 he led a collaboration reported in the journal Nature that found the first observational evidence that supernova explosions are responsible for the formation of black holes. His research has led […]
William Anders
William “Bill” Anders, is a former United States Air Force officer, electrical engineer, nuclear engineer, NASA astronaut, and businessman. Anders, along with Apollo 8 crewmates Frank Borman and Jim Lovell, is one of the first three persons to have left Earth orbit and traveled to the Moon. Following graduation from the U.S. Naval Academy, Anders […]
Michel Mayor
Professor Michel Mayor is an astrophysicist at Geneva University (Switzerland). Together with Didier Queloz, in 1995 he discovered the first extrasolar planet, named 51 Pegasi b, orbiting the sunlike star 51 Pegasi. Professor Mayor was awarded the Swiss Marcel Benoist Prize in recognition of his work and its significance for human life. In 2000 he was […]
Jim Lovell
Captain James A. Lovell, Jr, joined the space programme in 1962 following extensive experience as a Naval Aviator and Test Pilot. He was backup pilot for Gemini 4 and backup commander for Gemini 9. He was the pilot on Gemini 7, the first rendezvous of two manned spacecraft in 1965, and commander of the Gemini […]