This list of Russian astronomers and astrophysicists includes the famous astronomers, astrophysicists and cosmologists from the Russian Empire, the Soviet Union and the Russian Federation.
Astrophysics is a science that employs the methods and principles of physics and chemistry in the study of astronomical objects and phenomena. As one of the founders of the discipline, James Keeler, said, astrophysics "seeks to ascertain the nature of the heavenly bodies, rather than their positions or motions in space–what they are, rather than where they are." Among the subjects studied are the Sun, other stars, galaxies, extrasolar planets, the interstellar medium and the cosmic microwave background. Emissions from these objects are examined across all parts of the electromagnetic spectrum, and the properties examined include luminosity, density, temperature, and chemical composition. Because astrophysics is a very broad subject, astrophysicists apply concepts and methods from many disciplines of physics, including classical mechanics, electromagnetism, statistical mechanics, thermodynamics, quantum mechanics, relativity, nuclear and particle physics, and atomic and molecular physics.
Rashid Alievich Sunyaev is a German, Soviet, and Russian astrophysicist of Tatar descent. He got his MS degree from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology (MIPT) in 1966. He became a professor at MIPT in 1974. Sunyaev was the head of the High Energy Astrophysics Department of the Russian Academy of Sciences, and has been chief scientist of the Academy's Space Research Institute since 1992. He has also been a director of the Max Planck Institute for Astrophysics in Garching, Germany since 1996, and Maureen and John Hendricks Distinguished Visiting Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton since 2010. In February 2022, he signed an open letter from Russian scientists and science journalists condemning Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
2867 Šteins is an irregular, diamond-shaped background asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 5 kilometers in diameter. It was discovered on 4 November 1969 by Soviet astronomer Nikolai Chernykh at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnij on the Crimean peninsula. In September 2008, ESA's spacecraft Rosetta flew by Šteins, making it one of few minor planets ever visited by a spacecraft. The bright E-type asteroid features 23 named craters and has a rotation period of 6.05 hours. It was named for Soviet Latvian astronomer Kārlis Šteins.
Otto Lyudvigovich Struve was a Ukrainian-American astronomer of Baltic German origin. Otto was the descendant of famous astronomers of the Struve family; he was the son of Ludwig Struve, grandson of Otto Wilhelm von Struve and great-grandson of Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve. He was also the nephew of Karl Hermann Struve.
Simeiz Observatory was an astronomy research observatory until the mid-1950s. It is located on Mount Koshka, Crimea, by the town of Simeiz.
Nikolai Stepanovich Chernykh was a Russian-born Soviet astronomer and discoverer of minor planets and comets at the Crimean Astrophysical Observatory in Nauchnyi, Crimea.
Grigory Abramovich Shajn was a Soviet/Russian astronomer. In modern English transliteration, his surname would be given as Shayn, but his astronomical discoveries are credited under the name G. Shajn. Nonetheless, his last name is sometimes given as Schayn.
Otto Wilhelm von Struve was a Russian astronomer of Baltic German origins. In Russian, his name is normally given as Otto Vasil'evich Struve. Together with his father, Friedrich Georg Wilhelm von Struve, Otto Wilhelm von Struve is considered a prominent 19th century astronomer who headed the Pulkovo Observatory between 1862 and 1889 and was a leading member of the Russian Academy of Sciences.
Karl Hermann von Struve was a Baltic German astronomer. In Russian, his name is sometimes given as German Ottovich Struve or German Ottonovich Struve.
Vasiliy Grigorievich Fesenkov was a Soviet Russian astrophysicist.
Nikolai Alexandrovich Kozyrev was a Soviet Russian astronomer and astrophysicist.
2227 Otto Struve, provisional designation 1955 RX, is an asteroid from the inner regions of the asteroid belt, approximately 4.7 kilometers in diameter. The asteroid was discovered on 13 September 1955, by the Indiana Asteroid Program at Goethe Link Observatory near Brooklyn, Indiana, United States. It was named after Russian astronomer Otto Struve.
Edvard Hugo von Zeipel was a Swedish astronomer, with the specialist fields of study of celestial mechanics, astrophotography, and theoretical astrophysics. He worked at the Stockholm Observatory from 1897 to 1900, participated in scientific expeditions to Spitzbergen in 1898, 1901, and 1902, then worked at the Pulkovo Observatory from 1901 to 1902, the Paris observatory from 1904 to 1906, and the Uppsala Astronomical Observatory from 1911. He proved a key theorem about the Painlevé conjecture.
Kārlis Šteins was a Latvian and Soviet astronomer and populariser of this science.
Andrei Georgievich Doroshkevich is a Russian theoretical astrophysicist and cosmologist, head of the laboratory on the physics of the early universe at the Lebedev Physical Institute.
Stace Victor Murray Clube is an English astrophysicist.
John E. Carlstrom is an American astrophysicist, and Professor, Departments of Astronomy and Astrophysics, and Physics, at the University of Chicago.