MG 13 · 2012
Filippo Frontera
Filippo Frontera is an astrophysicist central to BeppoSAX gamma-ray burst instrumentation and afterglow discovery.
Born
1941, Savelli, Italy
Affiliation at the Time of the Award
University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy
Prize Motivation
“For guiding the Gamma-ray Burst Monitor Project on board the BeppoSAX satellite, which led to the discovery of GRB X-ray afterglows, and to their optical identification.”
Meeting
MG XIII, Stockholm, Sweden
Work
Gamma-ray bursts were long mysterious because their short duration made accurate localization difficult.
Frontera guided the BeppoSAX Gamma-Ray Burst Monitor effort that enabled X-ray afterglow detections and optical identifications.
Those afterglows tied GRBs to distant galaxies and opened the modern era of multiwavelength burst astronomy.