Rashid Sunyaev receives Fritz Zwicky Prize
The European Astronomical Society announced today that the 2026 Fritz Zwicky Prize for Astrophysics & Cosmology is awarded to Prof. Rashid Sunyaev for his pioneering work on the cosmic microwave background and the theory of disk accretion.
The Fritz Zwicky Prize for Astrophysics & Cosmology honours scientists who have obtained fundamental and outstanding results related to astrophysics and/or cosmology. The Fritz Zwicky Prize is awarded by the European Astronomical Society on behalf of the Fritz Zwicky Foundation, in Glarus, Switzerland.
Prof. Rashid Sunyaev's research covers a wide range of astrophysical problems, from elementary processes to physical cosmology. Among his many seminal results are the "standard" theory of disk accretion onto black holes and neutron stars (Shakura and Sunyaev 1973, 1976), the Sunyaev-Titarchuk formula (1980) describing the radiation spectra produced by Comptonization of low-frequency photons in high-temperature plasma, and the Sunyaev-Zeldovich prediction (1970) of acoustic oscillations in the angular distribution of the cosmic microwave background across the sky and baryonic acoustic oscillations in the spatial distribution of galaxies. In 1982, Prof. Sunyaev dived into experimental X-ray and gamma-ray astronomy where he had many important discoveries. He was a scientific leader of the astrophysical observatories MIR/KVANT, GRANAT, INTEGRAL, and eROSITA/SRG, which led to important scientific results in high-energy astrophysics.
Prof. Rashid Sunyaev is a German, Russian, and Soviet astrophysicist of Tatar descent. After his MS degree from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) in 1966, he obtained a degree of Candidate of Sciences in Physics and Mathematics in 1968 at MIPT, and a degree of Doctor of Sciences in Physics and Mathematics in 1973 (required in Russia to be a full professor) from Moscow State University. In 1974, he became a professor at MIPT. For several years, he worked as a scientist at the Keldysh Institute of Applied Mathematics, and from 1973, at the Moscow Space Research Institute. Since 1992, he has been its chief scientist. Concurrently, in 1996, he became Director of the Max-Planck-Institut for Astrophysik (MPA) in Garching, and since 2010, the Maureen and John Hendricks Distinguished Visiting Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. He currently serves as Director Emeritus of the MPA.
