The Marcel Grossman award is given for outstanding results
in theoretical physics and cosmology by the International Centre for
Relativistic Astrophysics (ICRA, Italy) and the International Network
of Science Institutions (ICRANet) since 1985.
Marcel Grossmann was a Swiss mathematician, classmate of Albert
Einstein, who encouraged and tutored Einstein to use geometry of curved
spaces as the mathematical formalism for the general relativity theory.
The award is given every third year, to a science institution and to
two or three scientists. The award is very prestigious; the list of those
awarded before includes, e.g., the Vatican Observatory and several Nobel
Prize winners.
This year the award will be given to a well-known Estonian cosmologist,
a senior research scientist of Tartu Observatory, academician Jaan
Einasto, for his pioneering contributions in the discovery of dark
matter and the cosmic web and for fostering research in the historic
Tartu Observatory.
Together with Jaan Einasto, the award will be given to Christine
Jones for contributions to X-ray studies of galaxies and galaxy
clusters, and to Michael Kramer for contributions to pulsar
astrophysics. The Institutional award will go to the Institute of Higher
Scientific Studies (France).
The awards will be presented at the 12th Marcel Grossmann meeting in
Paris, July 12, 2009.
Additional information:
Jaan Einasto has led galactic and cosmological studies in Tartu
Observatory for about 50 years and is well known in the world
astronomical community. His main results include the discovery of dark
matter around galaxies, and the cellular large-scale network of galaxy
filaments and voids. He is a member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences,
Academia Europeae, Royal Astronomical Society, American Astronomical
Society, International Astronomical Union and German Astronomical
Society. During his career, Jaan Einasto has obtained four Estonian
science awards, the last of them in 2007.
According to the present cosmological paradigm, dark matter is the
main constituent of the Universe - there is about ten times more dark
matter than ordinary baryonic matter. Together with dark energy, dark
matter determines the birth, evolution, and the final fate of the
Universe. Hints for its existence come as far as from 1930-s, Einasto's
discovery dates from 1974, and at the present there are several space
and collider experiments running to discover it experimentally.
The cosmic web (the Sloan Digital Sky Survey). The cellular
distribution of superclusters and filaments surrounding voids is
clearly seen.
The large-scale distribution of galaxies is not composed of galaxy
clusters, as expected earlier (the island Universe), but forms a vast
network of galaxy filaments and galaxy clusters that surround huge
voids. The network was discovered in late 1970-s, and the observational
properties and the physical reasons leading to such an arrangement are
yet under intense study.
