Fesenkov Astrophysical Institute (Астрофизический институт имени В. Г. Фесенкова, АФИФ), or FAI, is a research institute in

Almaty, Kazakhstan Almaty (; kk, Алматы; ), formerly known as Alma-Ata ( kk, Алма-Ата), is the largest city in Kazakhstan, with a population of about 2 million. It was the capital of Kazakhstan from 1929 to 1936 as an autonomous republic as part of t ...

. The institute was founded in 1941 as the Institute for Astronomy and Physics of the Kazakh branch of the USSR Academy of Sciences, when a group of Soviet astronomers was evacuated during

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

from the European parts of the USSR to Almaty. In 1948 G.A. Tikhov had organized an independent sector of

astrobotany Astrobotany is an applied sub-discipline of botany that is the study of plants in space environments. It is a branch of astrobiology and botany. It has been a subject of study that plants may be grown in outer space typically in a weightless but ...

, and in 1950 astronomers established the Astrophysical Institute of the Kazakh SSR. In 1989 the institute was renamed after

Vasily Fesenkov Vasiliy Grigorievich Fesenkov (13 January 1889 – 12 March 1972) was a Soviet Union, Soviet Russian astrophysicist. Biography He was born in Novocherkassk. After graduating from the Kharkov University (1911) he entered the University of Paris ...

, one of its founders. FAI conducts both

observational Observation is the active acquisition of information from a primary source. In living beings, observation employs the senses. In science, observation can also involve the perception and recording of data (information), data via the use of scienti ...

and theoretical research. The prime objects of observations are the

Sun The Sun is the star at the center of the Solar System. It is a nearly perfect ball of hot plasma, heated to incandescence by nuclear fusion reactions in its core. The Sun radiates this energy mainly as light, ultraviolet, and infrared radi ...

outer planets The Solar SystemCapitalization of the name varies. The International Astronomical Union, the authoritative body regarding astronomical nomenclature, specifies capitalizing the names of all individual astronomical objects but uses mixed "Solar S ...

comets A comet is an icy, small Solar System body that, when passing close to the Sun, warms and begins to release gases, a process that is called outgassing. This produces a visible atmosphere or coma, and sometimes also a tail. These phenomena are ...

Herbig Ae/Be stars A Herbig Ae/Be star (HAeBe) is a pre-main-sequence star – a young () star of spectral types A or B. These stars are still embedded in gas-dust envelopes and are sometimes accompanied by circumstellar disks. Hydrogen and calcium emission lines a ...

, and

active galaxies An active galactic nucleus (AGN) is a compact region at the center of a galaxy that has a much-higher-than-normal luminosity over at least some portion of the electromagnetic spectrum with characteristics indicating that the luminosity is not pr ...

. The topics of theoretical research include

stellar dynamics Stellar dynamics is the branch of astrophysics which describes in a statistical way the collective motions of stars subject to their mutual gravity. The essential difference from celestial mechanics is that the number of body N \gg 10. Typica ...

and

computational astrophysics Computational astrophysics refers to the methods and computing tools developed and used in astrophysics research. Like computational chemistry or computational physics, it is both a specific branch of theoretical astrophysics and an interdiscip ...

active galactic nuclei An active galactic nucleus (AGN) is a compact region at the center of a galaxy that has a much-higher-than-normal luminosity over at least some portion of the electromagnetic spectrum with characteristics indicating that the luminosity is not prod ...

cosmology Cosmology () is a branch of physics and metaphysics dealing with the nature of the universe. The term ''cosmology'' was first used in English in 1656 in Thomas Blount (lexicographer), Thomas Blount's ''Glossographia'', and in 1731 taken up in ...

, physics of comets and

interstellar medium In astronomy, the interstellar medium is the matter and radiation that exist in the space between the star systems in a galaxy. This matter includes gas in ionic, atomic, and molecular form, as well as dust and cosmic rays. It fills interstella ...

. The institute runs three observational bases in mountains near Almaty: Kamenskoe Plateau Observatory, Assy-Turgen Observatory and

Tien Shan Astronomical Observatory The Tien Shan Astronomical Observatory (TSHAO, TSAO, or Tien Shan Observatory; obs. code: N42) is an astronomical observatory located in the Tien Shan Mountains at altitude, 30 kilometers south of the city of Almaty in Kazakhstan. It was ...

. FAI is a member of the

International Astronomical Union The International Astronomical Union (IAU; french: link=yes, Union astronomique internationale, UAI) is a nongovernmental organisation with the objective of advancing astronomy in all aspects, including promoting astronomical research, outreac ...

Interesting facts

* The comet

67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko (abbreviated as 67P or 67P/C–G) is a Jupiter-family comet, originally from the Kuiper belt, with a current orbital period of 6.45 years, a rotation period of approximately 12.4 hours and a maximum velocity of . Chu ...

, famous for the

Rosetta Rosetta or Rashid (; ar, رشيد ' ; french: Rosette ; cop, ϯⲣⲁϣⲓⲧ ''ti-Rashit'', Ancient Greek: Βολβιτίνη ''Bolbitinē'') is a port city of the Nile Delta, east of Alexandria, in Egypt's Beheira governorate. The Ro ...

mission, was discovered at Fesenkov Astrophysical Institute. * FAI was one of the first institutions where a new branch of science—

astrobiology Astrobiology, and the related field of exobiology, is an interdisciplinary scientific field that studies the origins, early evolution, distribution, and future of life in the universe. Astrobiology is the multidisciplinary field that investig ...

—was born in the middle of the twentieth century.

References

External links

Homepage of Fesenkov Astrophysical Institute
{{authority control Astrophysics research institutes Almaty Research institutes in the Soviet Union Research institutes in Kazakhstan Research institutes established in 1941 1941 establishments in the Kazakh Soviet Socialist Republic Astronomy in the Soviet Union