Garik Israelian

Garik Israelian (Armenian: Գարիկ Իսրայելյան, born 1963) is an Armenian-Spanish astrophysicist and co-founder of the Starmus Festival. In 1999, Israelian and colleagues presented the first observational evidence that supernova explosions were responsible for the formation of stellar-mass black holes.

Garik Israelian
Born1963 (age 59–60)
Yerevan, Armenia
NationalityArmenian, Spanish
Alma materYerevan State University[1]
AwardsViktor Ambartsumian International Prize (2010),[2] The Canary Islands Gold Medal (2014)
Scientific career
FieldsAstrophysics, Spectroscopy
InstitutionsInstituto de Astrofisica de Canarias[1]

Early life and education

Garik Israelian was born in 1963 in Yerevan in then-Soviet Armenia. Preferring music over studying, he quit school at the age of 16, playing rock guitar in bars. Israelian credits sci-fi film Solaris for piquing his interest in science fiction and inspiring him to go to university. He studied astrophysics under Viktor Ambartsumian at Yerevan State University, graduating in 1987 and completing his Ph.D. in 1992. After a brief stint with an observatory in Northern Ireland and fellowships in Netherlands, Belgium and Australia, his final fellowship settled him in the Canary Islands in 1997 where he stayed and obtained Spanish citizenship.[1][3]

Career

Israelian has worked at the Institute of Astrophysics, Canary Islands (IAC) since 1997.[1] In 1999, Israelian and colleagues found the first observational evidence, based on data from the W. M. Keck Observatory, that supernova explosions are responsible for the formation of black holes.[4]

In 2001, he proposed the "Lithium-6 test" to determine if a star has engulfed a planet or other gaseous or solid matter. He and collaborators proposed that a solar-type star HD82943 with two giant planets has swallowed a massive planet or a large amount of small rocky matter.[5][6]

In 2009, he and colleagues discovered that stars with planets, such as the sun, tend to have much less lithium.[7]

Starsounds and Starmus
Garik Israelian (on right) with Jean Michel Jarre and Neil deGrasse Tyson at Hyden Planetarium (2017)

In 2005, Israelian compiled a library of acoustic sound waves produced within the bodies of stars.[8] In 2013, Brian May and the band Tangerine Dream used the starsounds in their composition Supernovae,[9] and in 2016 Brian Eno arranged some of Israelian's star recordings into a composition titled Starsounds.[8]

In 2011, together with astrophysicist and musician Brian May, Israelian and May created Starmus, a festival that would bring together the stars and music.[10] The concept of the Starsounds project was explained in Israelian's lecture "Our Acoustic Universe" at the first Starmus Festival and published in 2014 in the book Starmus: 50 Years of Man in Space.[11]

In a 2016 Larry King Now interview along with Stephen Hawking, Israelian explained the Starmus project and how he viewed music and arts as a natural way to inspire youth in science and astronomy — "I always thought that science inspired art, and art inspired science".[12]

Awards

In 2010, Michel Mayor, Nobel laureate in Physics, Israelian, and Nuno Santos were awarded the Viktor Ambartsumian International Prize "[f]or their important contribution in the study of relation between planetary systems and their host stars."[2]

In 2014, Israelian received The Canary Islands Gold Medal, awarded by the government of the Canary Islands.[13]

On 20 June 2016, the International Astronomical Union and the Minor Planet Center officially renamed asteroid (21057) 1991 GJ8 to Garikisraelian in honor of Israelian.[14]

References
  1. Cole, Teresa Levonian (10 July 2015). "How Armenian astrophysicist Garik Israelian rocked up in Spain". Financial Times. Archived from the original on 8 March 2023. Retrieved 8 March 2023.
  3. Sacristán, Martín (1 October 2022). "Garik Israelian: «El cielo es el mayor laboratorio que tenemos, gratis, sin pagar nada para mantenerlo»" [Garik Israelian: "Heaven is the largest laboratory we have, free, without paying anything to keep it" (interview)] (in Spanish). Jot Down.
  5. "Star 'eats' a planet". 9 May 2001. Retrieved 10 May 2023.
  6. Israelian, G.; Santos, N.; Mayor, M.; Rebolo, R. (2001). "Evidence for planet engulfment by the star HD82943". Nature. 411 (6834): 163–166. doi:10.1038/35075512. PMID 11346786. S2CID 2893939.
  7. Thompson, Andrea (11 November 2009). "60-Year-Old Solar Mystery Finally Explained". space.com. Archived from the original on 14 August 2012.
  8. Robitzski, Dan (24 June 2020). "This Music Made by Stars is Actually Extremely Beautiful". Futurism.com.
  10. Anthony, Andrew (17 July 2016). "Starmus festival: enough brains and Brians to fill the multiverse". The Guardian.
  11. Israelian, Garik; May, Brian; Eicher, David J., eds. (2014). Starmus: 50 Years of Man in Space. Canopus Publishing. pp. 132–139. ISBN 9781627950268.
  12. "Larry King's exclusive conversation with Stephen Hawking". Larry King Now. 25 June 2016 – via Ora TV.
  13. "La Medalla de Oro de Canarias a Dr.Garik Israelian" [Canary Islands Gold Medal is awarded to Mr. Garik Israelian] (in Spanish). 26 May 2014. Archived from the original on 26 February 2015.
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