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Paolo Farinella | |
|---|---|
 Farinella giving a public lecture inGenoa in May 1999 | |
| Born | (1953-01-13)13 January 1953 Migliarino, Italy |
| Died | 25 March 2000(2000-03-25) (aged 47) Bergamo, Italy |
| Known for | study ofasteroids andsmall bodies in solar system |
| Scientific career | |
| Fields | Astronomy,astrophysics |
| Institutions | Observatory of Brera Scuola Normale Superiore |
| Doctoral advisor | Giuseppe Colombo |
Paolo Farinella (13 January 1953 – 25 March 2000) was an Italian scientist very active in the field ofplanetary science and in particular in the study of asteroids and small bodies of theSolar System.
Paolo Farinella was born on 13 January 1953 in Migliarino, close toFerrara in Italy. He received his degree in 1975 at theUniversity and the "Scuola Normale Superiore" of Pisa. After that he became a graduate student ofGiuseppe (Bepi) Colombo and worked as a research astronomer at theObservatory of Brera.
From 1982 to 1998, he was a university researcher in Pisa, at the Department of Mathematics and at the Scuola Normale Superiore, teaching Physics and Celestial Mechanics. In the period 1992–1994 he was visiting professor at theNice Observatory with anESA "Giuseppe Colombo" fellowship.
In summer 1998 he won a national competition for a position of associate professor of astronomy and astrophysics in the Italian university, and starting from late 1998 he taught at the University of Trieste.Paolo Farinella died in Bergamo on 25 March 2000, due to heart failure.
His work as planetary scientist changed the view of the solar system revolutionizing the way orbital and collisional histories of asteroids are seen.He used his ideas in many fields of the space science that can be summarized in the following activities:
In 1980's Farinella was among the first scientists to conjecture theYarkovsky effect to be responsible for the migration of small asteroids from the main asteroid belt into different and potentially resonant orbits, with possible risks of impact on Earth.
Paolo Farinella was a member of the editorial board of "Icarus" and an Associate Editor of "Icarus" and "Meteoritics and Planetary Science". He was a member of theInternational Astronomical Union (IAU) and an affiliate member of the Division of Planetary Science (DPS) of theAmerican Astronomical Society as well as a member of the Solar System Working Group of theEuropean Space Agency.
He was very active into the astronomy popularization, writing dozens of articles that were mainly published by the Italian astronomical magazine “L'Astronomia”.
In June 2010, ten years after his death, an international workshop in his name was held in Pisa. ThePaolo Farinella Prize was proposed at this workshop and is now given in his honor.
In July 2015, after theNew Horizons fly-by withPluto, the New Horizons team gave the provisional name "Farinella" to a crater on Pluto, north of the Tombaugh Regio.
Asteroid3248 Farinella is named after him.
