22.09.2026

Andrea Santangelo and Cosimo Bambi receive the 2026 IAA Basic Sciences Book Award

The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) has awarded its 2026 Basic Sciences Book Award to Prof. Andrea Santangelo of the Institute for Astronomy and Astrophysics (IAAT), University of Tübingen, and Prof. Cosimo Bambi of Fudan University for their *Handbook of X-ray and Gamma-ray Astrophysics*, published by Springer.

The award recognizes the *Handbook of X-ray and Gamma-ray Astrophysics*, a major international reference work bringing together the expertise of a large number of scientists from the worldwide high-energy astrophysics community.

Edited by Cosimo Bambi and Andrea Santangelo, the Handbook provides a comprehensive account of modern X-ray and gamma-ray astrophysics. Across almost 6,000 pages and more than 150 contributions, it covers the experimental foundations of the field, X-ray and gamma-ray detectors and observatories, the physics of the Sun and stars, compact objects, supernovae, galaxies, active galactic nuclei, galaxy clusters and transient phenomena, as well as modern techniques for spectral, imaging, timing and polarimetric analysis.

The project was conceived not simply as a collection of reviews, but as a broad reference work connecting the observational techniques of high-energy astronomy with the astrophysical phenomena that they are designed to investigate. It is intended both as an introduction for graduate students entering the field and as a reference resource for researchers.

The International Academy of Astronautics informed Bambi and Santangelo of the award on 26 August 2026.

The award also recognizes the collective effort behind the Handbook: its preparation involved a large international community of authors and section editors covering virtually all areas of contemporary X-ray and gamma-ray astronomy.

“I am very happy and honoured that the International Academy of Astronautics has recognized our Handbook with this award.” Says Prof. Santangelo, "For Cosimo and me, this is above all a recognition of the extraordinary collective effort behind the book. The Handbook brought together several hundred scientists from many countries, representing an enormous range of expertise across X-ray and gamma-ray astrophysics.
Our ambition was to create something more than a collection of review articles: we wanted to provide a broad picture of the field, from the instruments with which we observe the high-energy Universe to the physics of compact objects, galaxies and the largest structures in the cosmos, and to the analysis techniques that allow us to extract this science from the data.
I therefore see this prize as belonging also to all the colleagues who contributed chapters, to the section editors, and to the wider X-ray and gamma-ray astronomy community. I hope that the Handbook will remain useful both to young scientists entering our field and to experienced researchers for many years to come.”
 

Teilen

Zurück