Planck Team Receives Gruber Cosmology Prize

On 10th May 2018 the Esa Planck space telescope Team and  Principal Investigators Nazzareno Mandolesi and Jean-Loup Puget were awarded the prestigious Gruber Cosmology Prize.

The recipients will divide the $500,00 award. In particular, Mandolesi and Puget, as the principal investigators on the observatory’s two instruments,  the Italian LFI (Low Frequency Instruments) and the French HFI (High Frequency Instrument) respectively, will each receive $125,000, while the Planck team, consisting also of a number of men and women scientists of the Italian National Institute for Astrophysics, will receive the remaining $250,000.

 The Prize will be awarded on August 20 in Vienna, Austria, at the General Assembly of the International Astronomical Union. Mandolesi and Puget will also receive a gold medal.

From 2009 to 2013 Planck collected data which has provided cosmology with the definitive description of the universe on both the largest and smallest scales. “These measurements have led to the determination of cosmological parameters (matter content, geometry, and evolution of the universe) to unprecedented precision”, the Gruber Prize citation reads.

The award and its  full motivation is available on the web page of  the Gruber Foundation.

Also the scientists of Trieste Observatory of the Planck team are very excited and proud about the prize. For the whole duration of the project (1992-2018) they were engaged in the management of the LFI Data Processing Center (DPC) that, together with the Mission Operations Centre (MOC) operated by ESA and the HFI Data Processing Center based in Paris, form the Planck Science Ground Segment.

 “The DPC based at INAF-OATs with the collaboration of A. Gregorio (Physics Dept., University of Trieste) and of SISSA (C. Baccigalupi) was responsible for the space operations of LFI and for the whole technical and scientific analysis which led to the generation and delivery of final data of the Planck Mission, namely calibrated time series without systematic effects, mapping of the sky and of the main astrophysical components, catalogues of the identified radio sources, and power spectra of  the Cosmic Microwave Background (CMB).
To be honoured with this Prize, says Andrea Zacchei, responsible for the DPC, makes us proud and emphasizes the 20-year long research project started by prof. Fabio Pasian, which will be concluded  precisely next summer with the last scientific release. The scientific Team from Trieste that developed the analysis code, formed by M. Frailis, S. Galeotta, D. Tavagnacco, M. Maris, G. Maggio and E. Romelli, has already moved to face a new challenge, the Euclid Satellite which will be launched in 2021.”