User:Aristarco Samos/Rafael Bachiller

Rafael Bachiller García (Madrid, 1957) is a Spanish astronomer and science popularizer, academician of the Real Academia de Doctores de España and director of the National Astronomical Observatory of Spain and the Royal Observatory of Madrid (IGN, Ministry of Public Works). He is secretary of the National Commission of Astronomy and Spanish delegate in the boards of directors of international institutions such as the European Southern Observatory (ESO), the Institut de Radioastronomie Millimétrique (IRAM) and the Atacama Large Millimeter Array (ALMA), among others.

Bachiller obtained his PhD in Physics from the University of Grenoble (France) and Universidad Complutense de Madrid (UCM). He specialised in the study of star formation and planetary nebulae. As researcher, he is known for discovering young, Solar protostars and for characterising molecular gas in planetary nebulae. Bachiller has also participated in projects for the development of large astronomical facilities, such as the Yebes Observatory, the IRAM observatories (in the Spanish Pico Veleta and the French Alpes), the Herschel Space Telescope, ALMA (in the Atacama desert, Chile) or the gigantic radiotelescope SKA.

In addition, Bachiller is known as an active science popularizer. He is a member of the editorial board of the newspaper El Mundo, where he is the author of the section 'Crónicas del Cosmos'. He has published several outreach books, such as El universo improbable in 2019, with a foreword by palaeontologist Juan Luis Arsuaga.

Works

 * 2009 – Astronomía. De Galileo a la exploración espacial. Lunwerg Editores. ISBN 978-8497856515.
 * 2009 – Astronomía: De Galileo a los telescopios espaciales. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas. ISBN 978-8400089160.
 * 2019 – El universo improbable: Estrellas fugitivas, partículas, vacío, infinito, portentosos agujeros negros y muchas otras cuestiones científicas sobre la vida y el cosmos. La Esfera de los Libros. ISBN 978-8491646785.
 * 2019 – El universo improbable: Estrellas fugitivas, partículas, vacío, infinito, portentosos agujeros negros y muchas otras cuestiones científicas sobre la vida y el cosmos. La Esfera de los Libros. ISBN 978-8491646785.

Recognition
Throughout his career, Bachiller has received numerous awards for his research and outreach work. Among them, the award for excellence «Gabriel Alonso de Herrera» in the Research and Innovation Awards of Castilla-La Mancha 2010, the honorable distinction in 'Física en Acción', or the prize for the best collaborative project in astronomy awarded jointly by the Spanish and French Societies of Astronomy.

In 2017, Bachiller was awarded the José María Savirón Prize in recognition of his career in popularizing science. In 2020, he received the special jury's Prismas 2019 award, which is given annually by the Museos Científicos Coruñeses to initiatives, publications, works and professionals who have excelled in the dissemination of science. That same year, he received the award from the Siglo Futuro Foundation in which he is recognized as a "Scientist and humanist with a broad vision of the human being, his ethics and the dissemination and humanization of science. A man committed to research, society and culture.".