Tycho Brahe Medal

The Tycho Brahe Medal is awarded in recognition of the development or exploitation
of European instruments or major discoveries based largely on such instruments.
Until 2018, the EAS awarded a Prize; from 2019, EAS awards a Medal.

2024

Photo credit: Charly Rappo
Photo credit:
Charly Rappo

The 2024 Tycho Brahe Medal is awarded to

the Swiss astrophysicist

Prof. Francesco Pepe (University of Geneva, Switzerland)

for the development and exploitation of ultra-stable high-resolution spectrographs which revolutionised the detection and characterisation of small-mass exoplanets.


2023

The 2023 Tycho Brahe Medal is awarded to

the German astrophysicist

Prof. J. Anton Zensus (Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy and University of Cologne, Germany)

for major advances in Very Long Baseline Interferometry that led to the first images of the shadow of the black holes in the galaxy M87 and in our own Galactic centre.


2022

The 2022 Tycho Brahe Medal is awarded to

the French astrophysicist

Dr Jean-Luc Starck (CEA Paris Saclay, France)

for the development of novel astro-statistics methods and open source analysis tools which have enabled optimal scientific exploitation of astronomical data obtained from European space and ground based facilities leading to major discoveries in extragalactic astrophysics and cosmology.


2021

The 2021 Tycho Brahe Medal is awarded to

the German astrophysicist

Dr Frank Eisenhauer (Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, Germany)

for his leadership of the SINFONI and GRAVITY instruments on the ESO VLT, which revolutionized the study of exoplanets, super-massive black holes, and star forming galaxies in the Early Universe.


2020

The 2020 Tycho Brahe Medal is awarded to

the Italian astrophysicist

Prof. Stefano Vitale (University of Trento, Italy)

for leading the LISA Pathfinder mission which has demonstrated with extraordinary precision the technology required for the future Laser Interferometer Space Antenna whose fundamental aim is to observe low frequency gravitational waves from space.


2019

The 2019 Tycho Brahe Medal is awarded to

the French astrophysicist

Prof. Guy Monnet (CRAL, University Claude Bernard Lyon 1, France)

for fundamental contributions to the development and implementation of 3D spectroscopy on optical and infrared telescopes and for his international leadership of observatory instrumentation programmes.


2018

The 2018 Tycho Brahe Prize is awarded to

the Polish astrophysicist

Prof. Andrzej Udalski (University of Warsaw, Poland)

in recognition of the role as driving force behind OGLE (Optical Gravitational Lensing Experiment), one of the most successful and longest running sky-variability surveys ever undertaken. OGLE has made a significant impact on many fields in modern astrophysics.


2017

The 2017 Tycho Brahe Prize is awarded to

the French optical engineer

Mr Bernard Delabre

in recognition of his leading role in the optical design of astronomical telescopes, cameras and spectrographs over the past 40 years.


2016

The 2016 Tycho Brahe Prize is awarded to

the German astrophysicist

Prof. Joachim Trümper

in recognition of his visionary development of X-ray instrumentation, from balloon experiments and the discovery of cyclotron lines probing the magnetic field of neutron stars to his leadership and strong scientific involvement in the ROSAT mission.


2015

The 2015 Tycho Brahe Prize is awarded to

the Swiss astrophysicist

Prof. Michel Mayor

in recognition of the development of instrumentation, which led to his discovery of the first extra-solar planet orbiting a solar-type star and to his leading role in this domain during the last twenty years.


2014

The 2014 Tycho Brahe Prize is awarded to

the French astrophysicist

Prof. Antoine Labeyrie

in recognition of his innovative concepts and inventions now widely used in modern optical imaging at high angular resolution.


2013

The 2013 Tycho Brahe Prize is awarded to

the Italian astrophysicist

Prof. Massimo Tarenghi

in recognition of his central role in the development of the European Southern Observatory facilities that have resulted in Europe's world-leading role in ground-based astronomy.


2012

The 2012 Tycho Brahe Prize is awarded to

the German astrophysicist

Prof. Reinhard Genzel

in recognition of his outstanding contributions to European near-infrared astronomy, through the development of sophisticated instrumentation, and for ground-breaking work in galactic and extra-galactic astronomy leading to the best evidence to date for the existence of black holes.


2011

The 2011 Tycho Brahe Prize is awarded to

the British astrophysicist

Prof. Michael Perryman

for his crucial role in the fostering of high precision, global stellar astrometry from space, in particular the development of the Hipparcos mission.


2010

The winner of the 2010 Tycho Brahe Prize is

the British optical engineer

Dr. Raymond Wilson


2009

The winner of the 2009 Tycho Brahe Prize is

the French astrophysicist

Prof. Françoise Combes


2008

The first winner of the 2008 Tycho Brahe Prize is

the Swedish astrophysicist

Prof. Dr. Göran Scharmer


Statutes

Preamble
In 2007, the EAS has created the Tycho Brahe Prize — to be awarded annually — in recognition of the development or exploitation of European instruments, or major discoveries based largely on such instruments. From 2019, EAS awards the Tycho Brahe Medal.
Award
Until 2018, the prize carried a monetary reward of € 6000.–. From 2019, a silver medal and a certificate is awarded. The award ceremony takes place during the annual EAS meeting. The winner of the medal is invited to present a talk at one of the plenary sessions. The Tycho Brahe Medal lecture may be published in The Astronomy and Astrophysics Review.
Nomination
There are no restrictions to nationality of the candidates nor to the country of origin or residence. Nominations should arrive at the EAS Office by the end of October of the year preceding the award. Nominations can only be made by EAS members and need to be endorsed by 2 additional persons, at least one of them being an EAS member.

Note that self-nominations are not allowed.
Selection procedure
EAS Council appoints a Prize Award Committee. This committee consists of a Chair and about 5–7 members. The Chair has qualifying vote. The Award Committee forwards its selection to EAS Council for ratification.
Funding
Until 2016, The Tycho Brahe Prize was funded by the Klaus Tschira Stiftung, a German foundation, which was established by the physicist Klaus Tschira in 1995 as a non-profit organisation.