Astrophysicists Eric Burns and Michela Negro from Louisiana State University have been awarded the 2025 Giuseppe and Vanna Cocconi Prize by the European Physical Society for their groundbreaking work in gamma-ray astronomy and multi-messenger astrophysics, as members of the Fermi Gamma-ray Burst Monitor (GBM) and Large Area Telescope (LAT) teams. The award was presented during the European Physical Society Conference on High Energy Physics in Marseille, France. Since its launch in 2008, the Fermi Gamma-ray Space Telescope has significantly advanced the understanding of the gamma-ray sky, identifying over 5,000 sources and contributing to major discoveries, including the detection of large "Fermi bubbles" in the Milky Way and the measurement of gravity's speed through cosmic events in collaboration with LIGO. Both researchers are involved in the upcoming NASA mission, Compton Spectrometer and Imager (COSI), which aims to map the creation of matter and the annihilation of antimatter in our galaxy.
Thu, 17 Jul 2025 02:01:06 GMT | LSU - Baton Rouge